The Saga of Big Harry
by PrestoManifesto
Summary: Set in the 1970s, Harry Morgan, father of Dexter Morgan, lives a double life of his own, only he lives by the virtue of truth and has nothing to hide. A story of both triumph and downfall that leads to the events of the Dexter series. Written in the style of an espionage thriller but with sort of parodic elements of both that genre and Dexter. Rated M for language and violence.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

The Blue Corner

Harry watched the minutes slot change on his digital wristwatch. For state-of-the-art technology the thing sure looked ugly. It was a prototype; every officer in his division was issued one, so he couldn't complain. He tended to find use in all the free stuff the department threw at him. At 17:00 hours he would get the call from Lieutenant Thomas Matthews—about what, he hadn't the slightest idea. Matthews had been keeping quieter than normal about upcoming operations; at least to him. Could tonight be the night? "Your badge, detective. And your sidearm," he imagined Matthew's dry, gravelly voice saying. The last thing he needed was another surprise.

He headed into the bathroom connected to the master bedroom and fetched a bottle of prescribed clindamycin from the medicine cabinet and hurried through the kitchen to the living room. Another perfect Miami afternoon shone in through the sliding glass doors, and a hot one, by the looks of it. Maybe it was better that he had gotten the day off. Another day in that kind of heat, in the middle of summer in Miami, and he'd be the one laid up on the couch in the next room. But he knew Doris, his wife, would bring him his medicine if he were in her place all the same.

She lay on the sofa under the cool AC of the living room, where it usually was the coolest; windowless except for the front door. She was watching one of her shows, it seemed, or was half-watching, half in contemplative respite, as Harry knelt beside her, helped himself to a handful of her popcorn on her lap, and carefully shook out two capsules from the bottle.

"Harry, what're you doing?" she said, her eyes staring far past the TV.

"What? The popcorn? Sorry, it looked good. It's cold though. How about I go make some more and we put on a movie? Anything good on?"

"No. I mean," she groped for the bottle in Harry's hand. He let her take it and she set it on the carpet next to the sofa. "I'm fine. I really don't want anymore. I told you I'll be okay." She came to awareness, as if suddenly stirred, and smiled at her husband.

"You think you're sick of this stuff? You should try taking penicillin twice a day. Remember when they had me on penicillin after I got shot?"

"You had me worried sick for those whole two months."

"You don't have to worry about me, Doris."

"And you don't have to worry about me, Harry Morgan." She threw her feet onto the carpet and made ready to stand up. She hesitated. Harry took it as a sign to help her up.

"Well," said Harry, putting on a playful smile, "I'm a worrier."

"A _warrior_?" Doris managed a chuckle. "Yes. You're my brave, crime-fighting warrior."

"That too, I guess," Harry laughed.

He helped his wife to the bathroom without needing to ask where she wanted to go. It was only ever that or outside to water the flowers on the back porch. He'd sit out there with her, but not in the sun, of course. This certainly wasn't the lifestyle he was used to; lazing around, watching TV, only leaving the house for a quick trip to the store or the pharmacy. But as long as Doris was ordered to mandatory bed rest by her doctor, he would take off all the time Lieutenant Matthews would allow. Part of him, however, hoped that the telephone would just ring already and it wouldn't be to discuss how much more vacation time he would be permitted, but to hear Tom utter the familiar phrase, in his normally coarse, direct tone: "Morgan, we need you on call. Right now."

Harry sat at the edge of his bed, looking over his collection of hunting rifles he had gathered over the years. He never was too particular to hunting. It was just something to ease his nerves after a hard week. The feel of a firearm in his hands was natural, and what he got out of hunting animals went beyond a thrill or a means to survive; rather, an extension of himself that had to be honed and appeased every once in a while.

He retrieved a small leather suitcase from the bottom of the gun cabinet, set it on the bed, and slowly opened it. Inside, his gear; tools of a bygone trade. This part of his past he hoped would stay at the bottom of that cabinet. He traced his fingers over the seams of the neatly folded garment; dark, sleek, smooth. Could he still fit in it? A long, thin cylindrical shape was still contained in its specific slot in a different compartment: the barrel of his trusty old PB silent pistol. How many times had he fired it, he wondered; six, maybe seven times? Each time he had, he faced a matter of life or death, and even then, only was his own ever at stake, lest his shot go so askew as to become fatal, which was near impossible as it was repurposed to fire tranquilizer rounds. He had gone behind enemy lines with these same two articles, been fired upon, undergone torture, as well as slipped relatively undetected into a number of dangerous facilities—unspeakable, horrible, cold, metal places. No matter how many times these two items had kept him from sure death, he wished nobody ever had to find out; nobody more than Matthews.

He could have sat in the bedroom all the rest of the day ruminating over his guns and old equipment, living again in the memories they brought back, but the phone rang from out in the kitchen. Harry glanced at his digital watch. It was time, but he couldn't go too eagerly, not with Doris watching from the adjoining living room. The caller had given up after only three rings; another sign the ever prompt Lieutenant Matthews was on the other end. Harry spun the rotary and reached his superior officer within the first ring, who answered with his usual dry, terse "hello."

"Lieutenant," Harry said, trying to conceal his smile as Doris looked up from where she lay on the couch.

"Morgan," answered the lieutenant, sounding almost as if out of breath. "Is this important? I'm right in the middle of something."

"Didn't you just call me?"

Matthews stuttered and then let out a small chuckle. "Morgan, I know you must be going stir-crazy; probably got a lot on your mind. I know I wouldn't be able to stand it, either. But if I were you I would enjoy sitting around on my ass while I can."

Harry turned from the inquisitive eyes of his wife. "So this isn't about me getting canned? You said you had something to discuss with me and I could expect a call from you around…" he checked his watch one more time, needlessly.

"For God's sake, Morgan," Thomas Matthews interrupted. "You're the best I've got. It's why I've been meaning to call; to consult you about this case. We can't discuss it over the phone."

"I see. Same place as usual then?"

"Yeah. I'm leaving the station right now. I'll be there in a half hour."

"You sure it's a good idea to drive?"

"You've got a half hour, Morgan."

Harry laughed quietly and hung up the receiver. He avoided looking over at Doris, who he could feel was still watching him, anxious to hear what the call was about. She sighed and said nothing for a long while.

"Go ahead, Harry. My parents are in town and I can call them in case I need anything. But you know I won't have to."

That was his wife all right—desperately trying not to look as needy as she really was. She needed him, but Harry also had his needs.

"It was Tom Matthews. He just wants to discuss this one case with me. I'm not getting called in; and if I were, I would have gotten a couple days notice." Not exactly a lie; that was how it typically worked. With Matthews at the helm of the homicide department, those two or three days were just enough time to toss whatever assignment he could conjure out the window and dream up another.

"Top secret, I take it. You're not going to the station."

"Must be. But don't worry, Doris; it won't be like the other times. Those days are over for me now."

"All I ask is that you be careful. I couldn't bear to see another bullet hole in you."

"I'm telling you, it's not gonna be like that. Tom just needs some advice on this case and I'll be home later tonight. You have that doctor's appointment tomorrow anyway."

"I told you my parents are in town."

Harry grabbed the keys to his Dodge Dart off the counter and headed for the door, pretending not to appear too eager. "I'll see you tonight," he said. Doris gave a small smile in response, though uncertainty lingered in her eyes.

Long shadows of the westering sun cloaked the streets of Harry's comely little corner of the neighborhood. The Miami sun would subside, giving the denizens of this city some relief from its cruelty for a time, and usher in another muggy summer night. The night in Miami revealed a different sort of place all together. The common notion of Miami would be that of sunshine, women in bikinis, lively nightclubs, and so on, but folks tended to forget the influence the moon had on this city; what sort of world it became after dark. The rough underbelly turns right side-up. Without it, people like Harry would be without a job, and for that he could be grateful, or at least hold in some macabre esteem this hometown of his.

He arrived with five minutes to spare. Dusk was pink in the sky. The lights flickered on in the parking lot. The place was mostly empty; it was a Monday after all. Perfect for these sorts of meetings with Matthews: "cloak and dagger bullshit" as he once put it. Harry walked slow through the double doors, under the sputtering, buzzing neon sign that read _The Blue Corner_. By no means was it his favorite place, as everyone at the station insisted. He had passed through the same shabby double doors that so many times he had stammered out, sometimes tossed through, bumbling and inebriated. He hoped for once he could walk out as the same person who walked in.

So it wasn't his favorite place, or by any means a pleasant place, save for that any place was a pleasant place as long as it continued to serve the next hopeless patron who happened to stumble in something hearty to drink, to reinvigorate the spirit, to chase the despair for another night, but by God—his favorite song was playing. Faintly amid the noise of chattering and clattering of glasses at the counter and the occasional _thwack_ of a cue stick against a cue ball, he heard the song _The Ballad of Little Fauss and Big Halsy_ on the stereo, and he felt compelled to make straight for the bar and indulge in another of his favorites: a neat bourbon. At the bar, he noticed, were plenty of faces; some familiar and some strange, but none were of the steely, almost smug complexion Tom Matthews wore.

Harry heard a whistle and then his name. He saw in the dim, smoky corner of the room his lieutenant sitting at a booth; his legs facing out, his tie undone, motioning to Harry with two fingers. Strange. He would talk casework all night with the bartender or anyone else interested enough who happened to be sitting near, especially once he had a few drinks in him, but the booth? Was he trying to be this furtive so when he delivered the news Harry wouldn't cause a scene? He couldn't stand to think any further into it. He approached the booth and took a seat.

"Christ, Morgan. Look at that head of hair! You couldn't have been out long enough to grow a mullet like that!" said Matthews. Harry brushed at the back of his hair touching his neck, suddenly conscious of it. He had never been one to follow trends, but it sort of came about on its own. Had he been going to the store looking like this?

"I'm a bit overdue for a haircut, aren't I?"

"You know what? I like it. As long as you show up when I call you I don't give a shit what you do with your hair! And look here, you're early. I figured now that you're married you wouldn't have time for this stuff anymore. Take it from an old-timer like me: being married isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"Just 'cause you made lieutenant, it doesn't make you an old-timer," said Harry. Matthews answered with a tight smile and gestured to an unopened beer bottle on the table as he popped one open for himself. Harry hesitantly pried the cap off.

They both swigged at their beers for a while without saying anything as the TV over the nearby pool table kicked on. It was the live broadcast of President Nixon's inauguration.

"Can you believe it? A second term?" said Matthews, pointing with the lip of his bottle. Harry gulped and nodded listlessly. "He's a complete whack-job. How can someone like him, so high up, have been allowed to slip through the cracks? There's no justice anymore."

Harry clicked his tongue, still nodding. "No, there's not. Not the kind that'll ever accomplish anything." He turned to look over his shoulder at the television screen. "You know, _you'd_ make a good president. They need someone like you."

"Someone like me?" said Matthews. "A washed-up detective, newly made lieutenant, with a drinking problem?"

"At least you look good on TV."

"Damn right I do." Matthews drained the last of his beer. "And if you think that's how you go about getting your shield, you're wrong. Sometimes it isn't as much about kissing ass as it is knowing how to keep a secret." Harry cocked his head, interested.

"Learn how to keep a secret real well, Morgan. Not only can it be the thing that gets you promoted in this line of work, but it might be the thing that keeps your ass alive one of these days."

"I guess everyone's got their secrets," said Harry, trying not to press too hard for Matthews to get to the point of why he brought him here. If this was some roundabout way of breaking it to him that he was terminated, he may be inclined to cause a scene after all.

"Sometimes," said Matthews, leaning back in his seat, "you've gotta lie. It's one of the first sins we commit as children. Why do you think that is?"

"Because it's more of a survival tactic." Harry always believed in truth, the whole truth, and nothing but—he wouldn't have become a cop if he didn't—but sometimes, being a cop didn't entail following the absolute truth. He never saw it possible. Lying had gotten him out of some hairy situations; he'd be a fool to ignore that. But rather, being a cop, as he came to learn, was more about how the truth exists in accordance to laws; the only sort of truth, in reality, people can live by. He supposed that's what Matthews meant.

The lieutenant got quiet again for a while and seemed to ruminate over some difficult thought.

"Do you want your job back?" he asked.

"What do you mean _back_?" Harry knew this all looked a little out of Matthew's style. It would be like Tom, however, to fire him without his knowing and then turn around and ask if he wanted his job back; like he was doing him a favor.

"Your _old_ job. Remember? You always told me you liked VICE better. You know; undercover work."

"Well I don't anymore. I'm trying to leave that part of my life behind me. I became a cop so that I don't have to lie about who I really am; so I can catch scumbags the right way. Those crazy operations you put in me on in VICE were… thrilling, but—"

"You said you were sick of this desk job shit. It's not a demotion by any means. Think of it as a special condition towards earning your shield. One last operation and you'll never have to look back. Then you can do all the boring, plain detective stuff you want."

"It's homicide. It's never boring."

"Come on, just imagine: strapping on the old night vision headset, crawling around in the weeds around back of some drug compound, taking out a whole platoon of dirtbags without them even knowing you're there."

"I was nearly killed last time you sent me to one of those rat dens."

"So you were shot; big deal. You're alive, aren't you?" Tom said with a shrug. "You're made out of some tough stuff, Harry. I feel bad for anyone that tries to step to any Morgans that come after you."

The notion of having kids made Harry laugh to himself. What did he have that could ever be passed on to a child, let alone, one who came from him? His explicit sense of right and wrong? How never to draw compromise in the face of justice? Those were rather hard-headed beliefs, and even then, they were only beliefs; hardly anything worth bringing a child into the world over.

"Look, I don't know who else to go to with this. I haven't run it by the captain, or any of the sergeants. It's not technically a homicide case, so I shouldn't even be fucking with it. But I'm telling you right now: this is huge. And it's right up your alley. At least take a look at it."

Harry couldn't have hoped Matthews would ask sooner. He stared hungrily at a small stack of folders and manila envelopes Tom had placed on the table. The lieutenant unwound the string on the topmost envelope and slid a few large-print photos Harry's way. They were aerial views of some sort of structure, like a plant or a prison. A few of the photos were in black and white—copies—riddled with crude scribbling. Harry had seen more organized casework from his sergeant.

"What you're looking at is another coke factory down in Cuba. Coast Guard rounded us up a good group of wetbacks trying to ship a boatload of blow into the Port of Miami, handed 'em over to us, one of 'em squealed and gave us this…" Matthews dug further into the envelope and produced a small photo of a dark-haired, swarthy-skinned individual; a deep, red scar across his cheek. "The ring leader: Santos Jimenez. He's been back and forth between here and Cuba over the last couple years. Wasn't too hard to put a finger on. Nobody's seen from him in a while, so best guess is he's in Cuba, keeping tabs on his supply, or maybe preparing another big haul."

"So we know his name, but can't get a sure fix on him. That's hardly worth risking your best guy, to chase the wild goose and find that he's not there or already made off with his shipment. Besides, how do we know if we don't nab this guy, the next in a line of ten or so won't fill his spot?"

"To be frank, I don't give a shit about this asshole; not so much as I'd rather incapacitate his operation from the source. Then, those other ten assholes'll be squabbling around with a multi-million dollar hole in the ground." Matthews slapped both hands on the table, seeing Harry's doubtful looks. "Bottom line: I can't have another haul hitting my streets like that last one. I just can't. This city's already a festering shithole enough as it is. You think the department can't look worse than it already does? Just let this piece of shit continue doing what he does best and everybody's gonna think it's free game here in Miami," Tom said, smashing his index finger onto the photo of Santos Jimenez.

"This belongs in the hands of the DEA, Tom," Harry argued. As much as he had heard of the goings-on in the world of the Cuba drug trade with how ruthlessly those folks handled business, he wanted no more than to go down there and serve some swift justice in his own way, be it alone or alongside the good men and women of Miami Metro. But it all looked peculiar. There were pieces missing.

The lieutenant shook his head. "DEA's been sitting on it. They don't find our sources credible. You know what _is_ credible?" Tom pulled out yet another folder from the stack. It had _Top Secret_ stamped in red across the front. He peeked quickly over his shoulder and opened it. "The FBI is treating it like a homicide case, and as long as the DEA keeps its hands off it, it'll remain a joint-effort with Miami Metro—well, that's how it looks on paper, at least. FBI's been looking into this Jimenez guy and all of his lackeys. They like to leave our informants in pieces around the city. As a matter of fact, a couple of 'em have been turning up, bit by bit, in and around the shipping yards lately. It seems to be their go-to place. We've had eyes on it for a while, and so have the FBI. They were able to trace Jimenez to that there compound I showed you. From what I understand, they've got agents down there now waiting to pounce."

Harry patted his T-shirt at the shoulder for his smokes. Right where he left them. "Then let them," he said. Tom already had his lighter ready. He lit Harry's cigarette and produced a cigar for himself and then lit it.

"You know, Morgan, I thought you'd jump at the chance to do this again. You've gone soft. Don't you want that shield?" Harry dragged long at his cigarette, squinting through the new smoke around his head. "Don't you want to be known as the hero who brought down these sons of bitches? Not only that, but do you realize what I had to do to get these FBI files?"

"Did it involve a set of night vision goggles and crawling around in some weeds?"

Matthews let out a sharp breath through his nose and collected the photos on the table. "Do you want the job or not?"

"So you want me to go down to Cuba, find the facility, and sabotage this big shipment?"

"I want you to see if our informant's full of shit." Matthews motioned to one of the waitresses. A round of shots soon arrived at Harry and Tom's booth. "I'm not sticking my neck out anymore than it already is with anymore FBI casework, so we won't be able to know what more they've got, or what the current situation is down there. But seeing as all of our informants are turning up dead, I'd bet it's safe to assume they aren't simply crying wolf. So, to answer your question, yes, you will be doing precisely that. And since you'll be working alone, I don't suppose arresting Jimenez is a realistic request, so I'm asking you to eliminate him."

"This is insane, Tom."

"Come on. If you don't, the FBI will. The thing is: you're better than the FBI; you don't have Washington to answer to, and for one thing, you cost a whole lot less."

Harry downed his third shot. "What about Doris? You know I can't leave her all alone."

"Ah, the Misses. No step kids to pick up her meds? No in-laws?"

"The in-laws are in town, now that you mention it," said Harry, pretending as if it just occurred to him.

"Good. Glad to see you're thinking clearly." Matthews was on his second or third shot; Harry hadn't kept track. Involuntarily, Harry knocked back another for himself, and another. Tom staggered to his feet, threw down a fairly large bill for the drinks, and patted Harry hard on the shoulder. "I expect your ass in my office at 6:00 sharp tomorrow."

Harry helped himself to the last shot left on the tray. He scarcely noticed that Matthews already had hobbled over to the door. "Six o' clock!" Tom yammered from across the room, through the noise of chatter and music, as he exited the bar.

Harry lingered at the booth, mulling over everything his lieutenant had told him; everything he had agreed to. When he felt capable, he too left the bar and staggered out to his Dodge Dart in the dusky light of the parking lot. He patted his pants for his keys and was surprised to feel an odd cylindrical shape in his pocket that rattled when he touched it. "Doris' meds," he muttered. "Her appointment. What the hell are you thinking, Morgan?"

He sauntered over to a shoddy wooden bench, appearing in some way strangely attractive in the cozy light of the street lamp overhead, and he collapsed into it, mumbling, laughing quietly in disbelief. He didn't know how long he sat there, fumbling with the little prescription medication bottle in his hand, but at some point, he drifted slowly to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:**Before I go any further, I'd just like to say thanks for reading. This story will get a little wacky and weird at parts, and it's meant to be funny in that way, but this story should tie in with the actual story of the TV show seamlessly where it begins. You can pick up the show from the beginning and, if you have an good, open imagination, watch it with the idea that all the events of this story occurred within the canon of Dexter and in his back-story. Of course, they didn't really, but what happens in this story presents a theory that I've always had about the show while I was watching it that could very well be what the writers had in mind while making it, but it is never exemplified or said explicitly. While this might take away from the mystery of that, keep in mind it probably isn't what the real writers intended. This will add a whole new realm of depth to the show and should really drive home the tragedy of Dexter's story. But! That isn't to say Harry's ending in this story is as tragic as Dexter's ending, and while Harry's life will have been different than Dexter's and his tale will have a different tone, there are clear similarities and any Dexter fan shouldn't find it too hard to tolerate. Let me reiterate: this will open a huge other door to the Dexter's legacy and bring to light what I believe to be an underlying sort of premise in the show and it should expound on the ending of the Dexter series; not take away from it, but should alleviate some of the sting or resentment towards it. Also let me reiterate: this will get…strange at times for the average Dexter fan, but hopefully not too distracting. I tried to stay true to the show as best as I could in terms of character and past events discussed or reflect on within the show, but then I went and added a bunch of ridiculous stuff on top. Thanks again for reading.

**Chapter 2**

Naked Abraham

Harry awoke to the sun beating against his eyelids. He jolted up off the bench in the parking lot of the Blue Corner pub and his hand reached automatically for his pocket. The pills were still there. His cigarettes, however, were gone; must have fallen onto the ground as he slept. He reached down for them, squinting at the blinding sunlight, scrubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. The light was more intense than sunlight, and whiter, and somehow cooler. It felt like nothing, actually. It was tough to stare on too long, but then a figure appeared in front of him, shielding his eyes a bit. It was a man, or the shape of a man, and the figure approached slowly. Harry wanted to check his watch. He knew time must have slipped while he was out. There was someplace he had to be and he may have overshot his one opportunity to be there in the midst of his slumber—or maybe not. Perhaps there was a small sliver of time left to get to his car and deliver Doris' meds and still make it to the station by the time Matthews had arranged. But he could hardly see a thing in front of him; only the light and the man-like figure, who was now upon him.

"Well if it isn't Detective Harry Morgan." The voice was a sly, sort of slithery type, and garnished with a slight southern drawl. Harry instantly recognized it.

"Stan Liddy," he grumbled, still debating whether he was awake or not, and now, with his new company, wished he wasn't. His head spun and he had the cruelest of headaches, growing hotter and sharper by the second. He was in no mood for the likes of Stan Liddy. "What do you want?"

"Morgan, I don't know you too well and you don't know me, but I know when I see a person in need. Lucky for you I value charity over friendship, so come on partner. I reckon wakin' up to a set a' high beams in the face ain't the way a fellow detective usually starts the day, so let me getcha' where you need to be."

Harry never was too quick to judge, especially a man whom he had only spoken to a handful of times, but something about his grin—always with a toothpick fixed in that toothy leer, eyes squinting and keen, but wearing an obstinately endearing demeanor—made Harry think carefully on if he could trust him in his car, or if he would even so much as ask directions from such a man.

"Thanks, but I can drive myself."

"I don't know if I'm comfortable letting a man who just woke up on a bench 'round front of some dive of a bar drive, let alone try and decide he knows best where he oughtta' be."

Before Harry could call Liddy a crazy son of a bitch and demand he get on minding his own business, he decided to try further in collecting himself, in case the buzz had evolved into some odd dream in his sleep and he truly had not shaken it yet. He looked once more at his watch. 5:42. If he hurried he could make it home with the medication and still see Matthews at the station in time, give or take a few minutes.

"Really, I appreciate it, but I'm a big boy. I think I've got a handle on it." Harry stood, maybe a bit too quick, and started towards his car, which he hadn't exactly spotted yet in the parking lot. He stumbled this way and that, but hadn't made it past Liddy's pickup truck before tripping and slamming chest-first into the front end of it.

"Whoa there, tiger. Let's get you in the front seat here and you can have some time to uh, collect yourself." Liddy took Harry by the arm and heaved his dithering body into the passenger seat. Harry tried fruitlessly to wriggle free. "Easy now. You're in good hands."

"My smokes. I left them over…"

"I've got you a cigarette right here. Just get in."

Harry kept his hands firm on the outside of both pockets of his jeans, each of which contained the two things vital to him that very moment: his keys and Doris' meds. Now here he was, riding shotgun in Liddy's (of all people that could have found him asleep on a bench) truck, and heading God knows where.

"I'm sure right now you're thinkin': how the hell did this bastard know to find me where he found me, and where the hell is he takin' me?"

"Back to my house real quick," said Harry. "I need to drop something off for my wife and then I need to see the lieutenant."

"You'll be able to get home after you get done at the station."

"What is this? Did Matthews send you to check up on me or something?"

"Should he have? You and him have a long night at the bar?" Liddy shot his passenger a sidelong look. "I'm just messin' with you. Whatever's goin' on between you and him is your business. Let's just say you've got somebody lookin' out for ya'."

"Whatever. Where's that cigarette?"

Liddy produced one from a pack sticking out of his front shirt pocket and handed it over. Harry used the built-in console lighter before Liddy could offer over his Zippo.

"You shouldn't be down there long anyhow. You're on vacation, right?"

Harry felt he was doing well at ignoring all the things Liddy seemed to know about him, which was already far more than he was comfortable with, but now it was getting weird.

"Yeah, I'm on vacation, but Matthews needs an extra brain on this case he's got. What's it matter to you anway?"

"Look, I know better than to get in a co-worker's business, especially when he's as good of pals with my boss as you and him are. Just remember who gave you this ride, detective. I'd be kissin' my ass if I were you."

"Gimme a break, Liddy."

"You're a fine detective, Morgan. I just don't wanna see you toss all you've got goin' for you down the shitter. From what I can see, you and Matthews are real buddy-buddy. There's something more to it that I'm not seein' and you don't want me to, but that's fine. Maybe you'll wish I did when your ass is in a bind that you can't weasel your way out of."

The fifteen minute drive could not have felt any longer. Harry got out of the truck before it completely parked, approached the doors of Miami Metro, finished his cigarette and went in. He wore the same t-shirt and jeans he had passed out in; sweat-stained and smelling of smoke. He could probably use a shave and definitely a shower. All that mattered was that he was on time.

He endured the accusing looks of his coworkers as he made his way through the lobby to the elevator and the floor of the homicide department. Folks were getting off their night shifts, looking twice as haggard as Harry, and yet persecution was in their eyes, veiled under a polite composure, of course; professional courtesy, acting, merely getting on with their lives—it didn't matter which. Where was the honesty in this house of justice?

Matthews sat rocking back and forth in his chair at his desk. Harry stood hesitating outside his door until Matthews motioned him in. "Shut the door. Better get the blinds too." Harry did as he asked, glad that he wasn't immediately chewed out for his attire.

There were boxes stacked on the floor at either side of Tom's desk. On top of the desk were papers disheveled and scattered everywhere.

"I came here immediately after leaving the bar last night. I just couldn't get my mind off of this." Tom shot up to his feet. His tie was crooked, jacket unbuttoned, and his normally smooth, slicked back hairstyle had stray curls. Harry hadn't ever seen his boss like this.

"Here's the deal," Tom said, sifting through the folder labeled _Top Secret_ and spreading an assortment of papers out of it across his desk, this time in a more coherent fashion, and with revised notes, which looked like more scribbling. He sniffed sharply and patted his fingers on the leftmost photo. "You will go in by helicopter and be dropped off at the rendezvous point—a small FBI setup, where you'll play a little meet and greet."

"Wait a minute. I thought no one's supposed to know I'm there."

"Well someone's gotta fly you there, and their helicopter has to touch down somewhere. Don't worry, I trust these guys. It's only a handful of agents working surveillance; a sort of free enterprise faction of the main FBI presence down there, and I've already spoken with them. They won't know the true nature of the mission, and even then, they won't ask questions. They'll cooperate under the assumption that you're another detective sent there to gather surveillance that they've taken, which belongs within our jurisdiction since this case is a joint effort."

"_Another_ detective? You've already sent others down there?"

"Not me; the Police Chief. This all stemmed from him, but now he's burnt out on it. He hasn't sent an operative down there in a good while, so you'll be expected and welcomed. As I'm sure you know, the sort of sensitive intel we're gathering can't travel over the phone lines, so it's imperative it gets delivered first hand. But don't get too hung up on gathering all you can from the feds—the point of this mission is for you to do your own reconnaissance, and, as I've mentioned…" He pointed with his whole hand to the next photo, slicing downwards like the strike of an axe. "eliminate Santos Jimenez."

Harry sat quietly, waiting to see his boss break composure and crack up, and reveal this is all a joke. Although imaginative, it wouldn't be too unlike some of the pranks he'd try to pull, or some of the other back-handed schemes that only ever served the purpose of making Harry appear foolish. Still, after all, Tom was a good friend, and all he had done was good-natured—in that, meaning he never risked marring his and Harry's friendship, even when he made no effort to hide that his goal was always that of political success; always trying to climb the ladder to lieutenant, and now to captain. But there was no jest in Matthew's keen, red eyes. Harry stared back inquisitively.

"Are you on cocaine or something?"

"Yes, but that's beside the point," Tom said, twitching his nose.

"Jesus, Tom."

"Stay focused here, Morgan. If this operation is successful, there won't be enough coke to go around anymore. But more importantly, you and I will be heroes. You'll be the detective who single-handedly brought down the biggest drug compound and shithead crack kingpin to have ever threatened Miami. You'll be guaranteed your gold shield, and lieutenant isn't far off from that. And me; I'll be the new face of Miami Metro as captain, and soon after, the city commissioner will have no other choice but to promote me to police chief for as long as this city hails for our valiant efforts."

"And if it's unsuccessful," Harry began. Matthews turned a slow, stern gaze on him. "It'll be the loss of both our careers. I've got a family to support. Longevity, Tom. I need assurance. I can't keep risking my hide on these off-the-record undercover assignments."

"What the fuck did I just get done telling you? This is the key to our long careers! Let me put it this way; you won't fail because you don't even wanna think about what happens if you do. It will be the repercussions that will be hailed as legendary if we fail. We'd be looking at treason, espionage; we're crossing all sorts of lines with this one." Tom's slicked hair now was a matted mess as it slipped down onto his sweaty forehead as he went on. Before, Harry had felt like the savage of the two. He thought if he didn't reciprocate, Tom might start foaming at the mouth.

"Tom, I want the job. I'll do it, okay? I'm just saying that it doesn't look like you've thought it through all that well."

"Thought it through, he says." Matthews hung his head and chuckled. "This career is all I've got left. That family of yours you talk about, you and your wife; maybe you plan on having kids—guess what? My wife's dead. I don't have a family anymore." For a moment, the snide confidence Tom seemed to carry about him faded, and he appeared in that moment grim, but for the first time in a while, unmasked and genuine. "So, Harry, you can bet your ass I've thought it through."

Harry stood square with Tom across the desk and peered hard into his eyes, and saw a grim determination in them. He and Tom were both men of hardship and buried woe, though neither could know what the other's eyes had seen, and in that perseverance and strength of will that Harry knew Tom for did Harry put his faith in his lieutenant and his trust, and by that had their friendship been bonded years ago and by that did it remain. "When do I leave?" Harry asked.

"You won't be deployed for another three weeks. The FBI won't get approval from Washington for at least another month, and in the meantime, they'll be keeping tabs on our target. These drug runners won't make a shipment between monthly intervals either, so as to thwart suspicion, but the FBI will be watching just in case. And for those three weeks, you'll have to remain away from the station. A reason for your absence might have to be established, because I don't think anyone has _that _much vacation time to spend. I imagine this whole thing already looks fishy enough to everyone else."

Never mind them. Harry could handle Liddy's suspicions about him, as well as any other nameless tightwad flapping his yap behind his back. But what would he tell Doris? That he had to take off work for another three weeks for reasons he didn't have the liberty to say?

"I suggest you brush up on your aim, spend some time at the firing range, and maybe on the treadmill too. It's a little different down in Cuba. This compound is located on a stretch of rocky coastline and surrounded by miles of jungle. How you make your approach is up to you. I need you in tip top shape if we're going to get this done in a timely manner. You'll have to get in and get out without alerting the enemy, without leaving a trace."

"I think I'll be all right. It shouldn't be anything worse than what you've put me through before," Harry admitted. He stood looking over the assortment of schematics and aerial photos. It all seemed a bit superfluous, even by Matthews' standards, or maybe it was as severe it was starting to look. Maybe this was the challenge Harry had been awaiting.

With a grunt, Matthews heaved a long container, like a trunk, off the floor and tossed it onto the desk.

"You might not need half of this stuff, but let's go over the fancy do-hickeys you'll be taking along with you."

Harry gazed in wonder as Matthews unclasped and opened the wide lid. Fitted neatly inside was a wide array of gadgets and devices; a lot of black and gray, and all brand new and expensive looking.

"Sorry, I don't have much as far as firepower, but I figured you had enough of your own at home, from what I've seen of that gun collection of yours. FBI left me with this fancy shit before they sent that team to Cuba I was telling you about. It's the same stuff their undercovers use."

Harry couldn't keep his hands from touching every last instrument in the box. The soliton radar he recognized; a little screen no bigger than his palm that used a technique similar to sonar to display nearby lifeforms as tiny blips. In contrast, there were the night vision goggles; bulky, heavy and as expensive as they looked. There was an assortment of long-distance scopes, ammunition magazines, and firing suppressors making up the bulk of it all. Then there were a few items of a less conspicuous variety that caught Harry's curiosity: little cases, about the size of jewelry boxes, one slightly larger than the other two. Matthews snatched them away before Harry got hold of them.

"Careful with these," he said. He gently opened the larger, flatter of the three boxes and revealed what appeared to be nothing more than a row of cigarettes in a tin case. "These emit knock-out gas when you put pressure on the butt. Just, when you've got one in your mouth, bite down and it'll spray out the other end. Perfect for up close and personal interactions, but make sure it's just you and him. It's only good enough for one guy; it can't fill up a room or anything."

"Tom, I don't think that's…"

"And this one. Woo boy this puppy's a doozy. Fucking hell, I hope it never comes to this, but this is your fake death pill." Matthews opened the second box and resting in a tiny niche was an ordinary looking capsule packed with white powder. "It's a huge dose of antropine. Temporarily shuts down your heart, then your lungs, and then nerves. All degrees of consciousness will cease for a short time; just long enough to fool an enemy. This is for if you're taken prisoner. You'll have a revival serum injected into your molar, in the event that for some reason the effects take too long to dissipate. So we'll have to do that before you're deployed in three weeks. And lastly we have…"

"Jesus. Listen, Tom. I don't need any of…"

"This," Tom said, opening the third box and removing from it another pill. "This is your cyanide capsule. This is the real deal. This is for if you see absolutely no other way out."

This was getting way out of hand. Harry had to step back. Never had any of this been discussed when Tom was prepping him for a stakeout or undercover sting. Harry never doubted his abilities, not until right now. Had he agreed to this too early? He couldn't go back on his word.

Tom dug at the bottom of the chest and retrieved a little flat piece of plastic with a long coiling wire coming out of it, and dangling on the end of the wire was a radio, much like the police-issue one Harry kept in his car.

"This is your Codec. I know lugging all this equipment around isn't your style; you go in practically naked. But this, you absolutely must have in order to retain contact with me. It's different than your average police radio. Supposedly it's FBI grade, so whatever that means. The signal should reach easily from here to Cuba. Even so, it uses radio waves, so we're gonna be using codenames when speaking back and forth. You'll have plenty of time to think about it; just make sure it's something you'll remember because it's the alias you'll be using when you come in contact with our FBI friends."

"I thought you said we could trust those guys. Why can't I use my real name?"

"This operation is strictly between you and me, Harry. This is so off the books that if you or I wound up missing because of this—killed or otherwise—nobody would ever find out why. This might be something we'll have to keep secret to our graves. It's that big."

Harry couldn't keep himself from laughing, either out of disbelief, oncoming hysteria, delirium; he couldn't tell.

"What's funny?" said Matthews.

"Before I thought you allowed me all that time off to get me used to life as a civilian. I thought you were getting ready to fire me. You told me you had something important to discuss with me and I thought that was it; I'm done. Now I'm beginning to think that could be true, but in a very different sense."

Matthews sighed. He stepped from behind his desk and sat on the edge of it next to where Harry stood. Harry could see doubt starting to show through his boss's grim sentiment. He had only just scorned Harry for his misgivings over the task at hand. It was in this vein of veiled manner that the lieutenant had grown accustomed to doling his business. It was just who he was. There was something else rattling him about the whole thing, Harry could descry. By design, Matthews had always masked the whole of his thoughts, and Harry would never know the full nature of his gambit. That was simply the way it would have to be for as long as their friendship should last.

"Harry, I know I'm springing this on you all of a sudden, and on top of that, it's a lot to absorb. But you have to understand; we need this. I need this. You're the only one I have left to turn to. If you're still on the fence about it, give it some thought over the next three weeks. I'm going to give the go ahead on it, so I can start setting things up. When the day comes, and you're about to step on that helicopter and decide right then that you can't go through with it, there's nothing I can say that will be able to stop you. It's in your hands, detective, whether this happens or not."

"You say this job will be the defining moment in our careers; make us heroes," Harry said. "If making this bust is as big a deal as you say it is, I don't see how you or I have the right to take the credit for it. We do our job for the people of our city; to protect the innocent. Is it not wrong that the truth remains only in the minds of two men, whether the outcome of this undertaking is good or bad? Are we not abusing our place in society here, by grasping for all the glory while other good men and women of this department may want in on this more? It's all just sort of…shady."

And on this day, Harry could read anew the meaning that had welled to Matthew's impenetrable surface, and there he saw now a glimpse of pity that waned as quick as he had marked it.

"Abraham," said Matthews. Harry threw his head back, perplexed. "You know, like Honest Abe? That's what you are. And, God damn it, I can't help but respect that. Sure it's shady business, but I've been planning this for a long, long, long time, and I wouldn't knowingly send you on a suicide mission, in whatever sense you take it, although this operation will alter our lives forever. How we play our cards here will determine if it's for the better or worse, as it will only be one or the other."

"I don't see any good coming out of this," said Harry. "But I'm glad it's you and I having this conversation and not two others in the next room, unbeknownst to us. If I have to do the dirty work, then so be it."

"I hope you feel the same way in three weeks," said Tom. "You'll be hearing from me. And I trust you won't repeat any of what was said here."

"If I'm as honest as you think I am, be sure that what was said here stays here."

"It's not your ability to tell the truth I'm worried about. It's how well you can keep a secret."

Harry shook his head.

"Abraham. How's that for a codename?"

Harry peeked through the blinds as he went for the door, seeing if a crowd had drawn outside. Thus far, everyone on the floor kept to their own business; however, he couldn't spot Liddy from where he was. "I'll have to think about that one," he said and left the office.

To his surprise, directly on the other side of the door stood Liddy, wearing a wide grin.

"All done in there, buddy? Lemme give you a lift back to the Blue Corner so you can pick up your car."

Before Harry could make a retort, namely with his fist, as no more proper a moment there ever was for it, Matthews scrambled through the door and got between them.

"I'll give him a ride," he grumbled. "You, Liddy, make sure nobody goes into my office. That includes you." Liddy nodded with a rather tacked-on look of conviction and stuck his back to the door once Matthews closed it. Harry's stomach churned. Anyone but Liddy.

Neither of them spoke much during the short drive. They only had the heavy thoughts of their earlier conversation and the stink of one another's B.O. to occupy their minds. Although the entire time Harry couldn't stop from wondering why Matthews hadn't just let Liddy give him a ride, if at least to ensure no unwanted eyes would see the sensitive casework he had left out, after all he had stressed about how disastrous even the slightest compromise could be for the mission. Was Liddy a part of it too? "That two-timing bastard," Harry thought. For whatever reason, Matthews sure didn't want him and Liddy to ride together. Was it _him_ that couldn't be trusted?

Tom let Harry out next to the same bench where he had been picked up earlier that morning and sped off without much adieu. Harry's watch told him it was barely past seven o' clock. He could deliver the meds back at home for Doris to take once she got up, and if she hadn't already called his in-laws, he could also take her to the doctor. A drive around town would do him well. Feverishly he dug for his keys. He could use a smoke. Maybe his cigarettes were in the same place he had dropped them; maybe not. He didn't care to check. Getting home before Doris awoke, before she could wake up alone and go for her meds only to find they aren't there, before she could see that her husband hadn't come home all night, was top on his list of things to do. Eventually he fished out the keys, almost to his car, and was shocked to find the passenger window smashed. Then, at the corner of his eye, something dove behind his car, near the trunk. Without further thought, he sprung at the shape, and found as he came crashing into the ground on top of it, it was a man. And not until he had thoroughly subdued him, with his elbow pressed into the scruff of the man's neck, his face mashed into the pavement, that this man wielded a knife, which he instinctively kicked away with his free leg, while the other pinned the rest of the body.

"Thanks for smashing my window, dickhead. Now you're under arrest," he said with a routine sort of ease.

"You're a cop!?" He let out a wail as Harry wrenched the man's arm in an unnatural way and threw him against his car. Luckily, he kept a pack of zip ties in his glove compartment for such on-the-fly situations.

"What I oughta' say is no, so that I don't have to bring you downtown. You picked a real bad time to break into my car, man. My wife needs her medication, so you might just have to learn your lesson next time I catch you breaking into peoples' cars."

"Well, officer, I'm a Vietnam veteran. How about you show your fellow comrade some pity? Times are tough out here. I've got no place to go, 'cept with my lady." To Harry's astonishment, the man he had pinned against the passenger door of his car began to sob and writhe like a child. "But my lady's gone; gone off to Mexico or some such shithole of a place. I can't live without her. You understand! You said you've got a wife. What if she just up and left you on the streets?"

Harry breathed deep through his nose. Now there was a stench he hadn't experienced. He quickly frisked his detainee and with his leg, reached for the knife he had kicked aside and tossed it in the back seat.

"Sit right here," he ordered, flinging open the passenger door. Thousands of tiny sparkling shards spilled onto the concrete. "Don't move a muscle or I'll blow your brains out, you got that?"

"That's no way to talk to your superior!"

"Fuck you," was the only response Harry could muster. He rounded the hood and plopped down in the driver's seat. "We're gonna make a little pit stop and then you're going downtown." The man made no answer; he only sat spittling and sobbing.

"My baby boy don't deserve a life like this, without his mama. I'm a terrible father. I'm a terrible father! I'M A TERRIBLE FATHER!"

"Shut up!" Harry raised an elbow and his passenger cowered into the windowless door and made no further noise, softly whimpering, and remained that way for the rest of the drive.

Harry pulled into the driveway around 7:34, just before Doris wobbled out of the bathroom for the first time that day. She smiled at him, rubbing her eyes, as he stood in the kitchen faking an innocent look.

"You know you're not very good at that," she mumbled, "looking like you've got nothing to hide."

"I know. I don't want to have to hide anything from you." Or anybody, for that matter, he thought.

"Then I won't ask how it went talking with Matthews, because I know you can't tell me."

"You're right about that." Harry quickly placed the bottle of pills that was in his pocket on the kitchen counter, hoping to change the subject. "I must have stuck them in my pocket and forget to take them out before I left. I'm sorry. How's the pain?"

"It's not the pain as much as it's the non-stop coughing. Will this infection ever go away?"

"I just hope it's nothing more serious," said Harry. "We'll see what the doctor says today. Before we do that, I have to run, but just real quick."

"Harry, my parents called. They can cart me around today if you're busy. Seriously, it's okay."

"No, I need to get out of the house today. I've got a lot to think about with that case Matthews has me on. Just give me twenty, twenty-five minutes, and we can get ready to go."

Doris shook her head, laughing. "Suit yourself, Harrison Morgan. You better be taking me out to lunch today if you're going to be so adamant."

"Whatever you want," said Harry, darting back through the front door.

He hurried back to his car. Good—his captive was still in the same place, relatively no different than how he'd left him, groveling and hog-tied. Even so, he approached the driver side slowly. He had half a mind to run back inside and grab his gun just in case he had to make his earlier threat more plausible, but his perpetrator was hardly in any position to overpower Harry, let alone, be enough at wits to. The detective took his seat, keeping his eyes on the man in the passenger side. He could feel no sympathy for this whining son of a bitch that bashed out his window and who was likely going to cost him a morning better spent with his wife. He stared at the floor mat for a moment, hiding his scowl, trying not to evoke any further conversation or reaction, when he felt something cold and round press against his temple.

"That's right, asshole," said the man in the passenger seat, sounding rather collected for someone who had been sniveling for a solid half hour. "Don't even think about calling for your wife or I'll clean the shit out between your ears right here and do her the same. Now drive."


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **I'll try not to do these that often, and if I do, I'll keep them short. I decided to express the inner thoughts Harry has that are clear sentences in italics. Since the story is told from a third person limited perspective, most of the narrative is already expressed by his observations and thoughts, but the italics are (for the most part) complete sentences and have a present-tense kind of vibe. There will be a few things I might just start doing out of nowhere like that, but I don't expect it to be too much or too noticeable.

**Chapter 3**

**I Got You A Soda**

"Keep driving, you brain-dead fuck." Harry half expected the man at his right to rip off a mask and reveal that his true face was that of Stan Liddy. He had the drawl, more or less, and apparently, a taste for theatrics. Liddy had behaved in ways that often caused Harry to wonder if he had gone off the deep end, especially when it came to getting what he wanted—the man had very little shame—but not even he had the kind of audacity to try a stunt like this.

He studied his aggressor out of the tail of his eye just to be sure. His skin was raw and leathery like Liddy's, but clung to his face tight enough for him to know it wasn't a mask. Yep, this was a new asshole to deal with.

Harry was ordered to drive out of the subdivision and then head north on the highway. He kept cool and motionless. He eyed his police-issue radio, set just beneath the car's cassette player. He wouldn't be able to reach down to get a distress call off. He could attempt to kick it off the receiver, or pretend to accidentally bump his knee and hit the call button. Would the dispatch even acknowledge it? The small chance, he weighed, was not worth being shot over.

The wind came strong through the busted window as the car gained highway speeds. He hoped another driver alongside him would notice his passenger window in fragments and call the police. He clung to that hope like it was his only lifeline. When after twenty minutes elapsed, gruelingly and slowly, and with that miserable noise of seventy-five mile per hour winds rushing into the car, Harry abandoned his earlier hope, and it was starting to look like he would have to take matters into his own hands.

"Get off here. I don't like all this traffic," said the gunman, still with his snubnose pointed at him by the waistside. Harry swallowed hard and took the next exit.

Ahead of them now were miles of open road with forest along either shoulder. The only traffic, for the most part, had been a semi truck they'd pass every now and then. Good—no one left in harm's way for when Harry would make his move. He just had to wait on a suitable place, a ditch or embankment, to flip a car. The man at his right had the look of a frightened, crazed animal; hardly would he anticipate such a maneuver, let alone react in time once the decision was made. But if Harry knew anything about these wild-eyed types, it was that they were as tough to read as they were to reason with. Ah, yes, reason; a little bit of light conversation, maybe, to jostle his passenger loose instead of turning head over heels in a metal heap.

"Mind if I ask where we're headed?" He didn't want to start off so direct, but naturally, the thought had been itching at him.

"Oh you'll see. The end of the line, if you don't cooperate. I don't want to have to kill you, because first I need something from you."

"You're gonna take a cop out in the middle of nowhere and shoot him? What good's that gonna do?" Harry didn't doubt for an instant that his captor had no good answer for these questions, whose face was a snotty, teary mess, and at the same time, twisted and maniacal, burning with some warped determination that was stewing in his imbalanced mind. From what Harry experienced, people like him didn't tend to think very far ahead.

The gunman rolled up the sleeves of his windbreaker jacket with an uncomfortable grunt. The summer heat was starting to get to him, it seemed, now that the car had taken to a slower speed and the wind flushing in through the window had subsided a bit. "Just hurry the fuck up. Go on, step on it."

"And risk getting pulled over? Won't that ruin whatever you've got planned here?"

"If I were you, I'd be praying to get pulled over right about now."

Harry shifted in his seat, frustrated that he ever thought reason would get him anywhere. Still, only when the opportunity was infallible would he decide on more drastic action, if he had that long. He had to pacify this guy somehow. He risked a full glance over at him and noticed a tattoo on his right arm; a spider web design, only partly revealed at the elbow where his jacket was rolled up. Harry didn't have any tattoos of his own. He liked to think he made _some _wise choices early in life, or at least had the sense not to make too many foolish ones.

"Maybe you could tell me your name," Harry proposed. "That way I can call you something besides asshole."

"You didn't give a shit about me a little while ago when you told me you would blow my brains out. Your little mind games ain't gonna work on me."

Harry flexed his grip on the steering wheel. Usually, in this sort of scenario, he was standing over his prisoner, who would be chained to a metal chair in an empty room. "How do you expect me to help you if I can't even know your name?" he said.

"You'll find a way, I'm sure. The best thing you can do to help me is to keep your mouth shut and keep driving."

Harry kept his hands in the same place, still kneading the wheel in frustration. He didn't dare let his eyes stray off the road; only in blinks to spot a potential crash-site, or anything besides endless woods on either side. A light flickered in the distance. A car pulled out onto the long deserted road from a little chalk path just beyond dense edge of the forest. As he neared, Harry saw that it led to a clearing and a little gas station. There were no road sides pointing to it. He prayed that it was still in business.

"We need gas, unless we aren't going much further," Harry said. The gunman said nothing as he descried the place from afar. He leaned over to get a look at the gas gauge for himself. Harry wouldn't lie.

"All right. But don't try anything funny. I don't care about wasting you or anyone else who gets in my way, and I don't mind going back to prison either."

"Understood. We'll just be in and out."

Harry rolled up to a pump and threw the car in park. He quickly scoped out the little tin shed of a place amid a white, gravelly lot. Nobody around. Just as he feared. Harry turned to his passenger and shrugged.

"You going in with me or what?"

"No, I'll be out here. And remember, I'm watching you," said the gunman. "You should also know that I'm an excellent shot, so save yourself the trouble and don't try to be a hero."

No matter how good of a shot this guy was, any bullets coming Harry's way were also coming towards any people inside the store. Going inside and telling the clerk to call the cops might not be the best idea either. Having the police close in on him and his reckless captor down the highway could mean the certain demise of the both of them. The captive was not the angle Harry was used to playing.

Harry filled his tank, all the while scrounging for last ditch attempts at getting himself rid of this scumbag. He enjoyed the calm, still air while he could and then got back into the Dart.

"I got you a soda," he said, starting the car and offering over a bottle of Coca-Cola. He took a drink from a bottle of his own.

"Awful nice of you, pal, but no thanks. I've got diabetes." His gun was laid on his lap as he messed with the radio. "Hey, by the way; this a '71 or a '72? They only came out with the cassette players starting with the '71s, right?"

Harry saw the moment of opportunity closing. His passenger leaned forward, covering the gun, but Harry could at least apprehend him like this for now, then if he got feisty, wrap the man's neck in his elbow and squeeze with all his strength, for his life.

"Yep, '71." Harry tried to concentrate on the road while finding a spot to set his soda down so he could take care of business, but his passenger snapped upright suddenly.

"Right. Well I was just wondering 'cause I'd just noticed it and then this caught my attention." He flicked the cord of Harry's police radio underneath the tape player. "So you are a cop. Well fuck me."

Harry couldn't decide if this would go better or worse for him now. The guy said he didn't mind going back to jail, but was obviously bent on something; probably nothing wholesome. As usual, because so far it kept him alive, Harry proceeded carefully.

"Uh huh. And I can have all the police in the city to back me up, like _that_," he snapped his fingers, "if I wanted." The gunman snatched his snubnose off his lap and flicked the safety off. "Or," said Harry, raising one hand passively, "we can leave it alone. Just me and you, sorting this out. But if you want something from me, you're gonna have to work with me a little."

"So what are you, undercover? A fed?"

"I'm a detective. And I'm supposed to be off duty."

The gunman knocked his fist on his own forehead, cursing to himself. "I sure as hell didn't know you were a cop when I was bashing out your window earlier. Look, I really can't go back to prison, not now. An animal like me belongs locked up, there's no doubting that, but my baby-girl's in trouble and so are my kids. I haven't seen her in months. If I go back to prison, fine; a lowlife like me deserves to rot. But my kids! They can't be without their mama. I have to get back to them, make sure they're all right. Then you can arrest me for the atrocious shit I've put you through."

Harry exhaled deep through his nostrils. If this was some lie, it was well-planned and rather drastic. What more could someone hope to accomplish out of holding a random man at gunpoint and telling him to drive for miles down a desolate road? Robbery? The sheer thrill of killing? Unless somehow this man was some sort of hired gun for the Cubans, ordered to take out the detective put on the Santos Jimenez case. The guy didn't look Cuban but sure did look like a criminal, and not like one that'd be biased towards whom he claimed the price of Harry's head from. No, it just wasn't possible. There was absolutely no way anyone could have gotten wind of what he and Matthews were planning yet. Only Liddy could have been behind it if it were a setup, and, regardless of his and Harry's differences, he wouldn't stoop that low, would he?

"You said _kids_? How many kids are we talkin'? Before you only told me you had one kid."

"I've got two boys. Three and four. Cutest damn kids on the planet, but I gotta admit; kids aren't for me, I've come to realize. My girl though, she loves those two boys like they're all that matters. But the drugs come into play and then you get fuck-ups like me having kids and…it's just all one big fucking shit storm."

Harry finished his soda quicker than anticipated. He stashed the empty glass bottle on the left of his seat, between it and the door, right where he could reach it and where it wouldn't roll around. "So you've told me all that; now you wanna tell me your name?" He peeked over and saw both hands on either knee and off the gun. _Momentarily. _

"Clyde is my real name, but being in the war," said the man. He threw his arms up very animatedly, and very away from his gun, "you forget who you are. Your name don't mean shit. It's like I left that guy back in 'Nam and now I'm…this."

"Okay, Clyde, so you're telling me you broke into my car and held me at gunpoint so you could get a free ride back to," Harry paused to look for a road sign. Just trees and endless Brazillian pepper baking in the sun as far ahead as he could see. "Wherever the hell we're going. That _sure_ sounds legit."

"It just happened to be your car I broke into," leaning down for the radio again, seemingly intrigued by it. "And I was hoping to score something I could pawn off real quick and then buy a bus ticket or something. This was me thinking on my feet."

"Careful. Don't touch that. Dispatch hears my radio come off the hook and they'll come runnin'"

"I know how walky-talkies work, my friend. I'm not your run-of-the-mill derelict that you might be used to." Clyde cocked his head. "You _are_ a cop, right?"

"Well, a detective. Detective Harry Morgan." He flipped down the sun visor and out slid his badge. He tilted it quickly towards Clyde and stashed it back in its place.

"Shouldn't you have shown that to me when you're arresting me?"

"No, I didn't have to. And so far I've been somewhat encumbered, so I haven't gotten the chance until now." Clyde gave him a suspicious nod.

"So you were in Vietnam, huh?" Harry asked.

"That's where I got this." Clyde turned his elbow towards Harry and rolled the sleeve of his windbreaker all the way to the shoulder. Indeed the tattoo was bigger than at first guessed. "And that ain't prison ink. Honest to God. I don't need to lie about serving our country. Nothing can make me look like any less of a shithead, anyway. Nothing can make up for what I've done just in the last few months or what I am. All that heroic shit—none of that matters anymore. My kids are going to grow up without a mother, or father for that matter, and it's my fault."

Harry couldn't get much else out of him after that.

In the distance, finally a man-made object appeared over the horizon. Already Harry could see the shimmering of many car windshields under the sun of high noon, all packed in a small parking lot. It looked like it could be an eating establishment of some sort; low, single-story roof, lots of windows, lots of people crowding in for lunch. As he neared, Harry could read the sign: _Harry's Seaside Grill. _

"Whaddaya know? _Harry's_ Seaside Grill," said Clyde. "That place is practically calling to us. I don't know about you, but I'm dying for a blackened Mahi sandwich right now. I've been there a few times; it's pretty good."

_Absolutely not_, Harry told himself. That was a disaster waiting to happen. For all he knew, Clyde, or whatever his name was, might decide he's fed up with Harry as his hostage and goes instead for a roadside restaurant full of people.

"Let's pass up on it. How about we just get you where you're going?" Wherever that truly was, he didn't care to imagine. Regardless of where, as long as nobody was around, he wouldn't let the chance slip again to take this man down, zip-tie him, wait for back-up, and then let the detectives down at the station listen to his life story; that is, if it was the same when he got there.

"Come on, Harry. I get all irritable when I'm hungry." Clyde took hold of the pistol again, chuckling, and threw it into the glove box. "Just think; you can ask me all the questions you want, and, get this—you won't have to worry about me shooting you. Nice, busy, public place, right by the road."

"Aren't we in a hurry to get to your kids? You said they were in danger."

Clyde hung his head through the broken window for a second, like a dog who couldn't sit still, as Harry reluctantly pulled into the parking lot anyways. "Yeah, but I don't know how this day's gonna turn out. You never know what can happen between the end and now." Even as they parked, Harry still didn't look convinced. "Come on, it's right by the water; it's a nice little place. You don't know what you're missing, man."

Clyde didn't give him much more time to answer. "Well, I'm going to get me a blackened Mahi, with or without you." Harry watched in bemusement as Clyde hopped out of his car and practically jogged up to the establishment and took one of the seats on the outdoor patio, overlooking a little canal. Harry could drive away and this so-called Clyde would be out of his hair forever, but as he reached over to check if the gun had indeed been put in the glove box, which it was, he recalled there being another weapon. Clyde had gotten out of plastic cuffs somehow. Panicked, Harry checked the backseat, where earlier he tossed the knife Clyde had on him. He dug in the crevices, under the seats, but the knife was nowhere to be found. Harry clambered out the car and sprinted after Clyde.

"Decided to join me? That blackened Mahi sound good or what? Good enough to come running, I see." Harry hovered over the back of Clyde's seat on the patio, panting. The place had gathered a pretty hefty lunchtime crowd, and nearly all of them were staring at him.

"Where'd that knife go?" Clyde sat with his arms folded and shrugged. "Seriously, where the fuck is it?" Harry persisted.

Clyde slapped his hands against his waist. "Must have forgotten I had it on me. I used it to get out of those dinky little zip-ties you had me in. Look, buddy, why don't you sit down? You're freaking everybody out."

A stout, portly woman wearing a bright smile surprised Harry from behind and greeted him and Clyde with a bubbly welcome and slapped two menus on the counter in front of them. Harry hesitantly took a seat on the stool next to Clyde.

"Two blackened Mahi sandwiches, please. A Beer for me, and a coke for my friend here," said Clyde. The lady pivoted and scuttled off with a nod.

"I thought you were broke," said Harry.

"The way I planned it, after pawning off all I could from your car, or whoever's car, I'd have enough for a bus ticket after a hit of smack. I know, you don't need to look at me like that; I'm a terrible father. Here I am, kicking back, waiting on a fine cut of fish while my two boys are crying at home for their mama. I mean, what the fuck?"

This man already showed he wouldn't listen to reason, so Harry wasn't going to even entertain arguing with him. "Where are your kids now?" he asked.

"With my neighbor, where I left 'em the other day."

"That's when you decided out of nowhere to come down to Miami? How'd you get there, anyway? You 'hitch a ride'?" Harry made his fingers into the shape of a gun.

"No, actually a couple of these Cubans I used to buy from gave me a lift."

Harry's breathing froze. Earlier Clyde thought them to be Mexicans. What next? Columbians? Venezuelans? All common importers of the hard stuff these days. He hoped it was only coincidence.

"They told me they would hook me up pretty good sometime in the next few weeks and that they trust me as a regular customer. But the motherfuckers know where I live. These aren't the guys someone like me should ever get mixed up with. I just wanted to check up on my sweety pie. When she's not home, the city's where you'll find her. She makes good money working the streets; turning tricks off of 79th street and that whole area, if you know it."

He knew it all right. That corner was as notorious for its filth as it was around the station for being the go-to place to pick up a confidential informant, or so that was the title these ladies would assume when it was asked of their accompanying officer. Come to think of it, Harry had spotted Liddy prowling around there, scoping out a hot new informant to keep him company for a night, but Harry had made sure to put it out of mind and would never try to spin that around on his fellow officer, no matter how dirty Liddy was known to play sometimes. He was sure, though, it would go the opposite had their places been switched. Liddy was always scouring for ammo, not just against Harry, but anyone who threatened his shot at a promotion, and as fond as Matthews had been of Harry lately, it was likely he had eyes on him this very moment. A slimy, sneaky bastard, that one. But, for once, Harry wouldn't mind the extra set of eyes watching his back.

"Sounds like you and your woman were made for each other; both setting good, honest examples for your children," Harry scoffed. "I can't say I feel all that sorry for you or your girlfriend. I'm not saying she was asking for it, but what'd you expect? 'Hooker goes missing; drug pushers to blame' is an everyday story for me, being a cop in this town."

The waitress returned with their orders and quickly zipped away to attend a pair of new guests sitting directly behind Harry and Clyde at a table. Clyde didn't even look at his sandwich as he sat turned in his stool, facing Harry, glaring stern at him.

"These Cubans you told me about—did you short 'em some money maybe, and this is their way of getting back at you?"

Clyde's hard gaze turned distant and contemplative. "I don't know, she knew these guys way before I ever met her. I met them through her, actually. But I guess that's possible. Seems like I owe every crooked motherfucker in this town money. Makes you wish you could just change your name and just get away from it all. Just start over."

"Well, good parents or not, you've got two boys who need their mother and father. I can take you back to them, but you've gotta sort out how you're going to keep them out of harm's way, in case these guys come after you next." Harry took a giant bite out of his sandwich. He never cared for seafood, but figured he never gave it much of a chance. He stuck with what he knew; what had always worked for him. Clyde still hadn't touched his food.

"You're right, I probably won't last much longer if I keep following the same path. I have no right going near those kids ever again. But what else can I do? After I heard my sugar pie turned up missing, my first instinct was to head home and make sure my boys were okay." He continued to ignore his sandwich and went instead for his beer. He gulped down half of it in one breath. "I don't think either of us realize how fucked I am; how fucked my kids lives are because of me. I'm worthless."

"Do you know the names of any of those guys who gave you a lift into town? Maybe one of them might know where your girlfriend is."

Clyde's eyes widened. "Yeah, one of 'em is pretty big time. Man, I'd be in a whole new world of fucked if they knew I ratted him out to a cop."

Harry glanced over his shoulder. The place had gotten busier and noticeably louder since his arrival. Nothing unusual, however. The two who grabbed the table behind where he and Clyde sat at the bar overlooking the inlet were quiet and seemed the eavesdropping type, but Harry thought nothing of them. Still he dipped his head low and urged Clyde to do the same.

"It's all right. Just keep it down is all. Go on, what are the names?"

Clyde sipped at his beer some more. It probably looked more natural that way, but there was nothing natural about the look of craven dismay in his eyes; like the look of a man who knew he was about to breathe his last, who would not walk willingly into his grave but be dragged, kicking and screaming. "Hector Astrada is the only name you'll need. He's something of a shot-caller in the Miami drug trade. Supposedly he's part of some big operation between here and Cuba. I don't know any of his other guys' names. One guy, I do, but he's Astrada's second head in Cuba; never comes up here."

Harry took his time on his sandwich. Clyde looked like he needed a minute.

"You think they did something with her?" Clyde asked weakly.

"You never know what can happen to the people who piss off those sick bastards. I've seen some ugly shit involving members of the cartel."

Clyde's face went white. "Gee, that sure is reassuring. What the fuck, man?"

"Don't worry; everything's fine. We're keeping it down." Harry glanced at the stool his back was turned to, which was empty, then, at the table closest to him with the two people at it, now enjoying meals of their own. "Anyone here you recognize?"

Clyde spun completely around on his stool to scan the patio, even going as far as to throw up a hand over his brow as if to shield from the sun, like someone trying to gauge a long distance. Harry seized Clyde's shoulder and spun him back around.

"Real smooth there, bud," he said. Clyde didn't seem at all put out. He even dared another quick side to side look.

"I don't see any of those guys here—not so far. Those guys'd stand out to me, I'd think, after all the threats they've made to my face, to Laura's face right in front me."

"Then for now you're safe. But after I drop you off it'll only be a matter of time until they come after you, right? Is that how it is?" Clyde blinked slowly, despondently, and nodded. This shouldn't have to be Harry's problem. He had a mission to prepare for. Doris needed him. How was he going to explain the bashed-out window, or the rancid stink his passenger undoubtedly stained into the front seat to her?

"So try to remember the other names," Harry urged.

Clyde nibbled at his sandwich with his head down, trying to muster up something, anything, but couldn't. Harry sighed. This was not how he wanted to spend the remainder of his vacation; chasing drug dealers up and down the east coast of Florida when he had a bigger fish to catch: one Santos Jimenez, an _actual_ figurehead in the trade. If that fish got off his hook, it would spell the end for Harry. Likewise, he figured, had he not played his cards the way he did so far with his new pal, he might have met a different sort of end.

"If this Hector Astrada is who you say he is, I can pull up his record, track him and all his boys down, find something to nail them with, and I'll bet we can coax out of them whether or not they're keeping her. Laura's her name, you said?"

Clyde nodded again, still with his head down. He inhaled sharply and threw his arms at Harry. It wasn't the response Harry expected. His new cohort had been so forthcoming, so genuine thus far; why now did he decide to show his true colors? Harry's reflexes kicked on not a second too soon and seized the two arms winding around him, anticipating the knife to be in one of the hands, and nearly hurled Clyde over the crux of his own shifting momentum. It had been a while since he felt that part of his brain triggered. These were some of the basics of CQC—close quarters combat—a skill that had served him well in the field when the odds had veered against him, when all other avenues of combat survival had failed. But never had his adversary yanked free of his grapple as quickly as Clyde. His attacker sprang back, out of reach, bumping into the folks sitting behind them. A hush fell over the entire place.

"What the hell? You trying to do some kinda Judo on me?" Clyde whined. "I wanted to give you a hug! To say thanks, ya know?"

Harry scratched the back of his head, at a loss, as all the startled, puzzled folk stared at him. Clyde's open palms were empty. Harry wanted to apologize, he wanted to turn and run, he wanted to go back and tell Liddy to fuck off when he had woken him up on the bench so he could pretend the conversation with Matthews the night before was some drunken reverie. Maybe then he wouldn't have wound up thirty miles up the interstate, stuck having to deal with some lunatic and his problems.

"Let's just get the fuck out of here," he said at length. He tossed a twenty on the counter before Clyde could relinquish whatever crumpled up scarcity lined his pockets and they headed back to the Dart.

The place was left the same as when he arrived, thankfully—no one maimed by his careless decision to chance coming there at all. Only two people had gotten up from their meals and they followed Clyde and Harry into the parking lot; the two who sat at the table directly behind them. Harry shot a suspicious eye towards them. As a law enforcer, one of the first things he learned was that anyone and everyone are potential enemies, no matter how unassuming or predisposed their outward manner, how detached or how determined the look in their eyes. These two were none of those. Understandably, they were fuming. Harry ordered Clyde to get in the car as the pair marched over to him.

"Hey, hombre, we'd like to have a talk with your friend." The man approached Harry, stopping just short of his toes, drawing his face up inches away from his. Harry could see his own reflection in the jet black of the man's sunglasses. He must have just put them on; sure wasn't wearing them a second ago, and didn't look nearly as menacing without them. His counterpart wore similar shades and a ferocious complexion beneath. Both were shaven bald on top; otherwise, their skin was imperfect—lumpy, and ridden with both minute and heavy scars.

"No, I'm afraid him bumping into you was my fault. If we have a misunderstanding, you two can take it up with me."

The two of them exchanged a look and cracked their knuckles. "Oh, there's a misunderstanding all right, but we don't got no problem with you, boss. It's your friend we want. Now outta the way or you might get some too."

Had these two eluded both Harry and Clyde's radar? They had sat merely two feet away from Harry and he couldn't sense they were trouble. Perhaps that was the plan: to send two guys Clyde wouldn't recognize to rough him up, or worse. Harry, always giving the benefit of the doubt. Two tough guys like that out to enjoy one another's so obviously charming company—right. So why not let them have at him, he thought? If he was playing Harry for a fool, then now the joke was on him.

The two men didn't wait for his decision. They pushed through him with surprising strength and approached the passenger door of Harry's car. He heard the clear sound of a hammer pulling back on a pistol. In that very instant he lunged at the man closer to him while the other spun around just short of the passenger door. Harry wrestled with the man only briefly before pinning him so that his neck was rent upwards and vulnerable for a fatal stroke that would snap the vertebrae. Seeing this, the other man shrunk back in terror. Clyde slowly exited the vehicle and approached the man as he staggered back until he quailed and surrendered flat on the ground, Clyde's snubnose revolver aimed at him.

"Harry, we gotta get the hell outta here right now." Clyde's voice trembled.

Harry could feel the eyes on his back from the crowd on the restaurant patio. "Relax. I'll pat these guys down for weapons and call a couple units up here to scoop 'em up. We don't want these clowns coming after us."

Harry released the man from the very vulnerable position he had him in to search him for weapons. He could feel his entire body quivering.

"We don't got no weapons, homes. We don't play like that. Your boy interrupted our meal and we was jus' trying teach him to mind his manners. Please let us go! You'll never hear from us again!"

"I don't wanna fuckin' die, man! Oh God!" The other one laid with his fingers interlaced on the back of his round head, face down. A wet spot soaked into the pavement around his waist. Probably not his finest moment.

"Put that thing away and get in the car. Never mind calling up more units. Someone inside probably already has." Harry fully released the man underneath him and had to pick the other one up by the arm to get him to stand. As soon as he shooed them off, they bolted faster than any man had ever run before his eyes, in no particular direction it seemed; just away. "I won't be able to explain this shit to them once they would have arrived. Fuck it. Let's make ourselves scarce." Harry slid over the hood, fired up the car, and peeled out back onto the interstate.

By 5:00 they had already burned through half of Harry's tape collection. He was delighted to discover he and Clyde shared a similar taste in music, save for Clyde's admittance to listening to disco every now and then. They settled on a Foghat tape as they crossed into Dade County. Clyde yawned and rested his arm out through the broken window.

"That was nuts back at that seafood joint, huh?" he said. "We really dodged a bullet."

"You mean that innocent guy dodged a bullet," Harry spat back. "You had a gun on an unarmed man and I was getting ready to twist the other guy's head off his shoulders! That could have gotten ugly quick. What are you still doing with that thing anyway? Give it here!"

Harry fumbled for the pistol lying on the seat by Clyde's leg and retrieved it without resistance, as Clyde waved his arm out the window to the music.

"Hey can we trade spots? I think I've swallowed enough bugs for a day."

"Absolutely not."

Clyde threw his head back with another huge yawn and withdrew his arm from outside the car. "C'mon it's not that much further. Besides, I might fall asleep if I don't find something to occupy my mind."

Harry's nerves were still abuzz from the earlier incident. He couldn't imagine even joking about sleep right now, let alone handing the wheel over to someone he didn't even know could drive. He could use a smoke. Man, could he go for a smoke. _Why didn't I buy cigs at the damn gas station earlier? Dumbass. _Instead, he settled on sodas; one a gift of treaty that was downright denied, which lie thudding and rolling under his seat; the empty bottle of his own still lodged between the door and the seat. What was Doris doing, he wondered? Was she taking her meds on time? Had her parents gotten her to the doctor's as she so profusely insisted they would? Oh the bargaining he'd have to do to get her to forgive this, if he returned; if he didn't wind up dead in some forest halfway across the state where no one would think to find him. He turned a newly suspicious glare on his passenger. Clyde blinked slowly, staring forward. Every now and then his chin dropped to his chest and then quickly bounced back up.

"How much further?" Harry implored. He was feeling wobbly in the legs, but not all that drowsy. He would deprive himself of any shut eye for as long as it took to get this bum out of his car.

"Eh, still got a ways to go. Bet we won't get there until long after sundown." Clyde turned the volume down on the cassette player and reclined the seat. "We might as well pull over somewhere. You've got to be exhausted, driving all day like that."

"That's either sarcasm or it's like you're aware of how chary you sound, as if to realize you're coaxing me into something. Sorry, not gonna happen."

"What is it with you? I know it's your profession and all to leave no stone unturned, always assume the worst in people, but man, give me a break already."

"After all I've put up with, you're gonna ask me for a break? After you smashed my window, pointed your gun at my head, admitted you were trying to steal out of my car, pointed a gun at someone else's head but not before almost getting us possibly killed by those two wackos—yeah, I don't think so. You're still a very peculiar person, even by the standards of the piles of shit I have to deal with on the regular."

"A guy like me takes something like that as a complement."

"Well, then you're welcome."

"I haven't been myself ever since I found out about Laura. On top of that, I haven't had a hit in a whole twenty-four hours."

"Yeah, and I could use a cigarette." He could feel the quivering in his arms now, up to his fingers. A headache was coming on too. "God, could I use a cigarette."

"Ah, so every man has his vices, even Detective Harry Morgan."

"And that's where they begin and end." Again, not a completely true statement. There were the other women on the side while he was dating Doris, the dabbling in light recreational drug use in the height of the 60s, the occasional drink; the overly occasional drink.

"Good, 'cause I was under the impression that you had a way worse vice." 

"Uh-huh, and what would that be?"

"That you're a liar. But I'm not so sure anymore. I'm beginning to think you're just the pathological kind."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Harry pulled the car over, into a grassy field covered in the long shades of growing dusk.

"All I'm saying is: a real cop would have done something about me by now."

Harry tore off his seat belt and turned to face his passenger fully, his teeth gritted. "A real cop would have shot a bullet through your forehead the moment he saw you with that gun, and that's if he was in a good enough mood to put up with your little game at all. A real cop would have bashed your teeth in and handcuffed your ass to some billboard on the roadside and let you get eaten alive by mosquitoes for the all shit you've pulled. That'd be justice served accordingly at least. A real cop wouldn't be as patient as I've been with you."

"So just to be clear, you _are_ a real cop."

"Yes!" Clyde studied him for a minute. He lay back in the reclined seat again and shut his eyes.

"Fine. If you say so."

Harry slapped his hand on Clyde's chest and his head bounced upright at once. "What makes you think I'm lying?"

Clyde smacked his lips and let out another yawn. "You're following your heart, Harry, and that's okay. I wish I had done it more in my lifetime. But you abide by certain principles that don't necessarily jive with the better of humanity, and I think deep down, in some way, you know that."

"So I stray from doing my job precisely by the book. What kind of world would it be if every cop was some brainwashed replica of one another, abiding only by a list of things a group of people I've never met thought would be a good idea to live by? Besides, sometimes you have to lie. A friend once told that to me." Tom Matthews; hardly a man whose moral choices should be taken outside of rhetoric.

"But Harry, lying is one of the worst things people can do. Above any other vice you can dream up, lying is the worst. I don't care of it's killing other people for fun or because of an urge. Lying still tops that. We lie because we have secrets. The more we feel like we have to lie throughout life, the more we are trying to hide secrets or the longer we have to hide one big secret; living in a double existence. One side will inevitably clash with the other, and the burden of keeping them separate can weigh mighty heavy on a person throughout a lifetime, and not only grow to ultimately destroy the life of that person, but also the people that person's life touches. To bring a lifetime of lies to the surface would tear that man's world apart and all the people in it."

"No catastrophic, life-ending lies here. I think I can manage with the occasional bending of the truth." Harry still wasn't sure how soon he'd want to come forward about what happened today with his wife. He'd need to avoid that topic as much as possible. He certainly didn't want to ever recount to her having his estranged passenger that day, although he didn't think he would ever forget about him.

The two sat in silence for a time and it wasn't long before Clyde was out cold. Harry watched a flock of ibis flutter across the long, treeless field. The sun was red and low over a horizon of very distant treetops. The wind of the dying day was cool at last as it blew softly in through the shattered window. Harry felt himself blink slower and slower as he watched the little white dots dance in the air for a bit before landing all at once and then taking off again. He looked over at Clyde one last time before surrendering to the weight of his eyelids. _Eh, he's harmless—to me, anyway. _But to his children, to his children's mother, he was surely something dangerous. _What lies was he hiding that could destroy them? He spells a series of poor choices but he's been more honest than I have, more honest than I would be in his place._ With that, Harry would leave tomorrow to continue the northward trek. He slid the snubnose revolver behind his waistband, folded his arms over it, and fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

"It's not over yet!" screamed a voice right into his ear drum. He nearly knocked his head on the car roof. "It's not over yet!"

He jerked his head side to side frantically, wondering who the hell had the nerve to wake him up with such imprudence. Clyde had only just opened his eyes, still wriggling in a fetal posture, slowly looking around, perplexed. Harry jammed his pinky into his ear to clear it. Maybe he was hearing things. Maybe he had said it out loud in his sleep. He had done that a few times. He tried to see out the window. The field was now an endless pool of ink under a starry sky. The moon looked like a pale lamp behind the moving clouds. He saw a thin but sheer white light pass over his view, stinging his eyes for that short second, and then again another light swept by and lingered on his face.

"Shit, Harry! Wake up!" Clyde slapped Harry hard on the front of his face repeatedly while he sat upright at his window, trying to see outside too.

"I'm awake, asshole!"

"Then get us outta here! Those motherfuckers from the diner are back!"

Still hazy, Harry clambered for his keys, but it was too late. The driver side window exploded and right after the windshield burst in three places, the millions of white little cracks in the treated glass coming within split seconds of each other. Harry cranked his wrist to start the car, feeling a lot more coherent now, and it fired to life and he mashed down the gas pedal. He plopped it sloppily into the next gear, and the next, but soon after the front end flew high into the air. He heard the whining of the engine as the wheels were allowed to spin on thin air, followed by a tremendous _thud! _as the vehicle came back to earth. The impact tossed debris and glass everywhere. Minute fragments stuck into his skin, all over his arms and his face, but nothing hurt right then. The car made a horrible groaning sound when he tried to stomp on the gas, which slowly drowned into silence. The car was going nowhere.

"Clyde, you got that gun?" Harry mumbled, still wildly foggy and disorientated.

"No, you took it, remember?" Clyde's voice sounded rough and breathless. "I-I've got that knife still, somewhere 'round here."

Harry spat a string of curse words as he groped hysterically for the pistol on the floor. He was afraid to look up. Only smoke and a black night all around, for now. He heard shouting from behind and it was coming closer; many voices, not just two.

"This might b-be it, H-Harry," Clyde whimpered in a weak, sputtering croak. "I just wanna tell you something real quick. I'm sorry for calling you a liar." He coughed. "S-sorry 'bout that. You're a good guy, d-doing all this for me. But it's really for my kids, and for Laura. T-tell them…tell them,"

"Shut up!" Harry said, trying to keep quiet, trying to keep his voice from flaking. "If you're not gonna help me, just sit there and be quiet!"

"Tell them…that I hate them."

Harry felt his eyebrows twitch. This surely wasn't the time for meaningful talk, but it caught him off guard. "What?" he said.

"That must be the truth. I mean, I-I've f-fucking failed them. I mean, holy shit did what I was trying to do go horribly wrong. I can't lie to myself. I-if I didn't hate them, I would have made—_ugh_—way better choices. Just…have them thinking their father…was something he wasn't."

"Save it. They're here." Blood trickled down his face, into his eyes; so much, apparently, that he could barely see out of his right one. However, he felt nothing but sheer focus. "Just keep low. I'll handle this."

Harry saw the beams of light piercing the kicked up dirt and smoke in the rear view mirror coming up over the hill. He felt around once more for the gun but quickly gave up to follow through with his plan. He slipped quietly, although rigidly, out of the car and lay flat on the ground by the battered front end. He squinted through the pluming smoke and the blood dripping off his brow. His right eye just couldn't be wiped clear. In his hand was a weapon of sorts; not the gun, not the knife, but the empty Coca-Cola bottle he had jammed between the seat and the door.

The assailants came one by one over the hill until six men in total had halted just short of the car, a few with flashlights, and with guns. Harry's breath came steady. He focused on it. He focused on the men; watching their movements, watching how they communicate, watching for any other surprises. Soon their footsteps fell an arm's reach away from him as they split up and approached both car doors. They flung open the passenger side door, shouting things in Spanish and broken English.

"He's dead," one of them said, as if let down. The others by the driver's side scurried around back (thankfully) of the car and they all stood about, repeating the same thing over and over: "he's dead."

What Harry wouldn't give for his PB pistol right now. Though it fired only non-lethal tranquilizer rounds, it neutralized an enemy threat all the same without taking a life in the process. No matter the despicable acts these men may or may not have committed, or arguably just had, Harry held firm on the belief that he had no right to doll out death to his fellow man. For him, staring down the barrel of another man's gun was never followed by a life-or-death decision; always life—or more properly—life or tranquilizer. However, being on the other end of a gun was a fairly rare occurrence, and never at such close range as these guns were to him now. He remained undetected for the moment, but outnumbered as he was, and hunted, that was soon to change. He might have to take his first human life.

All twelve feet stood in a cluster around the passenger door, now probably going through Clyde's clothes. _The knife, _he tought._ That's one more weapon I don't need to worry about. _Harry needed to strike while they were gathered tight like this. If all went smoothly, which if it didn't he would likely die, and that wasn't going to happen, he would be able to employ a method of CQC designed to thwart multiple enemies at once; using the element of surprise, using their weight and his momentum at such close quarters to knock the others standing around off their feet too, like a bunch of bowling pins. It would only work if he met them at unawares. It had to work. There was nothing to worry about.

Harry tip-toed in the churned-up dirt around where the car struck the earth, and crouching only centimeters from the nearest guy, he sprang forth with all the force his muscles could procure. The first one went down like a bag of rocks, taking the two in front of him down and all crashing into a pile of each other's tangled weight. The fourth man turned to face him and got the bottle cracked over his skull, and all its splintering shards sprayed those standing, including Harry. He was already bloody and was fighting well so far. The fifth was armed but hadn't fully caught on to the assault upon his fellows in the second or so that had elapsed, so Harry twisted the rifle from him easily and the way he was turned allowed for the strong downward yank to throw him also to the ground. Before the last man could use his weapon, or back up even by one step for the next move to miss or land with insufficient force, Harry launched the butt of the rifle into the man's chin. It didn't put him down at once. Another blow to the face did it, and he wouldn't be getting back up for a while. The other five writhed, probably more in confusion than pain, but Harry made sure they were all treated equal. He quickly disarmed them of any other weapons—and one did have the knife—and then exhausted his bag of zip-ties to keep them restrained.

He didn't care about catching his breath, or wiping the blood out of his eyes despite how it stung. He rushed over to Clyde.

"You with me?" he said, patting his chin. He honestly hadn't counted on it, but Clyde's eyelids flipped right open, and he appeared fairly lucid.

"Not dead after all," he said. "They don't have ugly dicks like you in heaven, I hope."

Harry ignored the comment and searched Clyde for wounds. His windbreaker jacket was unstained, as were his pants. His high bony cheeks were scraped, but other than that, he seemed unharmed.

"My chest hurts. Maybe—maybe broke a rib or two. _Aghh!_" he breathed in hoarsely. "I was conscious when they were going through my jacket and pant pockets. Hope they—_hack!—_like all those soda can tabs I collected today. I didn't really have any money; I-I lied about that too."

"I thought you didn't drink soda. Said it didn't jive with your diabetes," said Harry, still searching intently for wounds.

"That was when I didn't know you so well, Harry." He hacked up a spritz of blood, speckling Harry on the face with it. It reminded him to wipe his brow again. "Like your friend said, we sometimes have to lie. I guess it's a survival tactic. But sometimes no matter what our bodies try to do…some people aren't meant to survive."

"You've just got a few broken ribs, maybe other bones too, but you'll live," said Harry, almost wanting to laugh at how sour of a turn things took. He knew Clyde was in pain, probably more than he could guess—his own still hadn't kicked in yet—but whatever was the matter with him looked survivable. He didn't try to lift him to examine his back. The car wasn't going anywhere. He reached over Clyde's legs for the radio and called for an ambulance. He didn't know exactly where they were. "Not ten miles into Polk County on the interstate," he told them.

Harry let the radio fall out of his hand when he was done. Suddenly a sharp pain shot up his arm, through his shoulder, to his chest. Now he needed to catch his breath, as he stood propped against the passenger door frame. He winced at the gathering blood in his eyes, unable to wipe it away without falling forward. He could see Clyde fiddling with something in his jacket pocket. When it seemed Clyde noticed him watching, he quickly drew out his hand, and in it was the snubnose pistol. He pointed it outward and fired.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note**: So I know I said I wouldn't do these little expositional introductions for every chapter, and I still won't for every single one, but I can't help after writing a piece of the story I'm trying to tell but to offer a little insight or commentary on some of the stuff. It may seem like this chapter strays a bit from the action of the previous one but it's a pretty pivotal chunk that will set up the action to come. I love the beginnings of stories because what comes next is the fun part. Some of you may be able to see where I'm going with this story already—that is, if anyone's reading it. And I'm fine with no one reading it; I just want to present the ideas I've had boiling in me after finishing Dexter as to a different and bigger meaning to the story the show tells. So if you, whoever you are, are reading, and can put up with my meat-and-potatoes writing style and sometimes weird grammar and punctuation, then thank you for that. Also feel free to review. Tell me I suck and I'm a stupid, dumb asshole—I don't care.

**Chapter 4**

**Kept You Waiting, Huh?**

Harry heard a heavy mass collapse merely feet from behind him. He spun around and saw, out of the six apprehended, one was without his plastic restraints, which lie broken on the dirt, and with a bullet hole directly between the eyes. The others who were conscious began to grovel and pray in Spanish. Harry had another laugh of disbelief ready but it hurt to breathe all of a sudden.

"You had that the whole time, didn't you?" Clyde gave an ashamed smile and nodded.

"What were you gonna do with it?"

"The same thing I was gonna do with it this morning, before I ran into you." He put two of his fingers in his mouth and cocked his thumb. "As soon as we went flying off that hill and I heard their voices echoing—those fucking wetbacks and their damn—_hack_!—bean speak—I knew it was all over. It was like… 'Sayonara.'" He leaned his head to the headrest and coughed another speckle of blood. "But I thought of Laura, and the boys, and how far I'd come just today. S-still, it ain't lookin' good for me, buddy."

"An ambulance is coming right now. I'd say we're gonna be fine."

Clyde held in a cough to smile. He patted his hand on the dashboard. "Yeah, but I don't think she's gonna make it. She's wrecked. She was pretty, though. That's what drew me to her in the first place."

The front end and the hood were mangled and mashed upwards; the front bumper was like a giant, metal, crinkle-cut French-fry; the radiator was rent up through where the hood was curled backwards. Smoke and steam bellowed out from the twisted mess. The sight of his Dodge Dart in shambles made him swoon. He didn't feel faint a second ago. He didn't recall hitting his head. He tried to grab hold of the door and grimaced in pain as his arm gave from underneath him. There, flat on the dirt, he lie, watching the clouds reel over the moon, waiting for the sirens.

Fifteen minutes later, according to Harry's unscathed digital watch, the ambulance arrived and loaded them both on board. Harry could hardly remember getting into the ambulance or how long it took to get going. He couldn't fully trust what he was seeing or experiencing; his eyes weren't adjusting to all the lights, not registering what he was seeing. Red and blue lights flashed against the narrow window of the back of the ambulance as police cars came up the highway to assess the scene. One of the ambulance technicians gently turned Harry around from the window.

"Sir, we need to get you on oxygen right now. And we need to put this IV in your arm to help with the…" the man winced, staring at Harry's right eye, "with the pain."

"I'm fine, just drive the damn ambulance." The technician swallowed thickly and went back to tending Clyde.

Clyde lay in a long stiff stretcher with his jacket open and the shirt underneath cut down the middle. He had several IVs and tubes and such strewn all over and across him, and an oxygen mask strapped to his face. The heart monitor hooked to him beeped steadily.

The two said nothing the whole trip. Harry figured Clyde wasn't in the mood to talk. Still Harry barely noticed any pain from all the broken glass stuck in him like pins in a pin cushion, but he had to eventually accept the towel lent by the technician to stop the blood from leaking anymore into his eyes and onto the floor. He couldn't push hard on his face enough to stop the bleeding all the way, he couldn't see, the chirping of the machines and monitors, the incessant questions from the EMTs—Harry considered accepting the morphine IV, if only it was enough to knock him out. He tried to concentrate on blocking it all out, on forgetting this whole thing, letting it all slip through sensory memory and into the fog.

As soon as the ambulance came to a stop Clyde was whisked away in his stretcher by a garrison of nurses and emergency staff, and Harry was shoved into a wheelchair and then guided inside behind them. They took Clyde down a different hallway once inside, off to the right. Harry couldn't turn his head in time to mark exactly where. Perfect.

A young blonde woman bent near him with a clipboard as he and the group of hospital staff surrounding him sped the wheelchair down the hall. "Is there anyone we can call for you?" she asked. Harry had to turn his head to one side to look at her. She smelled like fresh laundry; not like how the others smelled, like bleach or soap. "My wife," and he told her the phone number. "But you don't need to call anybody for me. I'm not hurt." He shouldn't have said anything to her. He shouldn't have let them shove him into the wheelchair. He shouldn't have taken Clyde anywhere but straight to the police station when he happened upon him breaking into his car—his car, the trusty Dodge Dart would still be around. Doris wouldn't have to be dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. Clyde would still be crazy, but in much better hands, not coughing up blood, not getting carted down an emergency room corridor.

Harry was hoisted onto a bed in a little square room; one of the walls being a curtain. Three or four of the physicians stayed with him most of the time, asking him all sorts of questions that he just didn't care to answer. _Why do they do this?_ he wondered. _I have about a hundred different pieces of glass sticking out of my body and they want to know my mother's maiden name_. He couldn't keep track of all the things being done to him; all the tubes and wires they hooked him to, all the monitors to which those were connected, all the questions the physicians were asking him.

"Sir, can you tell us your name?" Harry answered with a lethargic nod, as he had been answering all of their questions so far.

"Sir?" A man wearing thick brown glasses hovered almost nose to nose in front of him, shining a little light into his left eye.

"Where'd that blonde go? Lemme talk to her."

The physician turned and motioned just off to the right, out of Harry's view, and a young woman kneeled hesitantly in front of him. There was that smell again, of clean laundry. It was long before she said anything and Harry didn't mind it that way. She was quiet, timorous, looking around at the other nurses and technicians in the small room.

"What else hurts? Besides, obviously…" she lifted a finger from her folded hands and then quickly pulled it back to her lap. Harry couldn't understand what she meant. Nothing hurt.

"He's not lucid, nurse," one of the physicians said. "He must have suffered head trauma. Here, report this all to the doctor: the patient has sustained multiple acute lacerations to the chest, neck, and face; uh, what looks like a broken collar bone; and, let's see here…" The man with the brown glasses swooped in front of Harry again, this time coming much closer to his face with the tiny flashlight, passing it slowly over his eye. "Chief complaint will be a foreign object protruding from the right eye." The blonde nurse hurriedly scratched it all down on a clipboard and scampered out through the curtain.

"Sir, you're going have to talk to us for a minute."

"Where's Clyde?" Harry said. "He all right?"

"The one who was brought in with you, yes he looks like he's not in too bad of shape; not as bad as you are. You've got some substantial blood loss going on, so we need to put you on an intravenous drip and you're going to need oxygen too. We'll take x-rays and some other tests here shortly, so relax for right now. If you don't want to answer any questions, you don't have to, but it'll help you to get out of here sooner."

Harry looked down towards his feet and saw the physicians plucking at him with pliers, removing the bits of glass from his chest. He wondered what became of the shirt he had just been wearing not long ago, and his wallet and keys. His badge, Clyde's knife, whatever other little nameless things he kept in his car and wouldn't need until he thought of them were in somebody else's hands now. He wondered how long it would be before Doris and her parents arrived. There would follow another bout of questioning he could do without. He tried to keep still while the doctors worked.

Harry couldn't tell how much time had gone by, but when most of the ER staff had left his little corner, he sat up on the bed and let waking life slowly soak into him. Beside him was a metal cart with a tray on top and it was full of bloody chunks of glass, and among them, one large piece, about the size of a tortilla chip. He swung his legs off the side of the bed, hesitant to hop down, feeling extremely heavy in the head. He wanted to lie back down and think to himself some more; wait for Doris to get there, but he wanted to at least see how Clyde was doing—God knows Doris wouldn't let him out of her sight when she got hold of him.

"Ah, Mr. Morgan. Feeling better?" said an articulate, though slightly ethnic, voice from a gap in the curtain. A man in a long white coat and wearing a paper mask over his mouth entered the room. How did they know his name? Had they recovered his wallet? He didn't remember telling them his name.

"My head's…sorta heavy." Harry touched his forehead and knew why. There was about five pounds of bandaging wrapped around it. "I don't think I hit my head. It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts."

"Well, that's unusual, I have to admit. But the body will do remarkable things when it goes into shock or trauma. Yours is a strong one, so be thankful you've kept up a relatively healthy lifestyle, or else this incident might have gone differently. Your friend actually is in rougher shape than you recovery-wise, and upon being brought in, it looked like it should have been the other way around."

"So how is he?"

"He's sustained multiple broken ribs, among other minute fractures. No glass got him, however—it looks like you were the unlucky one as far as that's concerned. One of the broken ribs managed to tear a small puncture in his lung, so he's gong to need a lot of rest and he'll have to be kept stabilized for a few days more."

"Well I'm going to have to see him before I leave with my wife. I'm his arresting officer and I'm not—" Harry tried to lean on his left arm but it was suspended in a shoulder sling, causing him to topple onto his side. "—done with him."

"I don't think either of you should leave; you not for another few hours at least," the doctor chuckled. Harry could picture a perfect white smile underneath that mask of his; a condescending one. These doctors were all the same; raking in the big bucks to look like they care, only knowing the next person as a piece of meat or a biological mass with a name. Harry's name happened to come with the word detective attached, and sometimes this bought him special treatment—sometimes worse than the average schmuck could expect—all in all it came with responsibility, and Harry needed to handle his.

The young blonde nurse sprung through the same gap in the curtain and quickly sat Harry upright, bringing a waft of that fresh flowery scent with her. Her blue rhombus eyes met his and lingered there for a while. She giggled. He must have been staring, like a dumb oaf.

"So Harry Morgan, is it?" she said as she started adjusting the many devices wired to his body.

"Detective Harry Morgan," he corrected, smiling. There was something about her voice, her scent that he couldn't quite pinpoint; like she was from some fascinating, far away place, and had brought all of this intrigue and mystery with her. In just the small amount he had heard from her, he could detect wisdom and eloquence in her tone, surprising of her apparent young years.

The doctor pulled the nurse aside and whispered something to her before slipping out of the room. She got on fidgetedly after that, avoiding Harry's curious stares.

"I know I look like shit right now, darlin', but I wasn't always this ugly."

The nurse turned to him, giggling. "The doctors don't like me talking to the patients, especially not the ones who are also detectives." Her accent was so charming; definitely not like any woman Harry had ever met in Florida.

"Oh yeah? Why, you on the run from the cops or something?"

She pivoted where she stood, handling everything she touched ever so delicately and deftly, and removed the IV from his arm and switched off one of the monitors. If only she'd do that with all the other wires and things all over him. "No, I'm an intern, taking my studies abroad to see if I like it here in the States. I'm a psychology student back where I'm from."

"And that's why you can't talk to me?"

"Well, my main area of study is criminal psychology. I have something of a fascination for the criminal mind and I'm afraid I can go on rather long about the topic, and have with some of the policemen we sometimes see. And while the doctors here admire my fascination and ambition in the medical field, they assure that this side of the job is much different than what I'm used to, namely here in the emergency department. They say that in having my long-winded discussions with patients, it only delays brining in the next patient. I'm not used to such a fast-paced environment."

"You can pick my brain as much as you like, honey," said Harry, allowing the nurse all the space she needed to lean over him and remove the heart monitor tab stuck to his finger.

"To be honest, I don't find you all that interesting," she admitted, "but I can continue asking you the routine questions, if you still prefer me over the technicians."

"Well I'll say that you are beginning to interest me very much," said Harry. The nurse helped him sit back upright. "How's about you tell me your name."

The nurse veered her crystal eyes from Harry's obstinate gaze for a second, smiling with timid indecision. "My parents and everybody else use my full name, Evelyn, but you can call me Eva."

Harry venerated every last syllable out of the nurse as she went down a list of protocol questions that he may or may not have already answered. He didn't mind—he could listen to Eva ask them ten more times each. For the moment, thoughts about Clyde, about his wrecked car, about his wife, had all completely escaped him, and he was fine with that.

"Any allergies?" the nurse asked. Harry shook his head.

"Any preexisting conditions that you're aware of?" She eyed her clipboard intently.

"Not that I'm aware of."

She clicked her teeth. "Oh my. Then this might come as bad news."

"It'll be tough to disappoint me." Eva could tell him he had cancer and he would probably still sit there with that dumb, glazed-over look on his face.

"You have cancer."

_What?_

Harry leapt off the bed, nearly knocking over the metal table next to his bed, and all the little vials and instruments on top. Eva jolted back and threw her hand over her chest. She looked up at him with frightened countenance, which quickly formed into a small smile.

"No, no, I'm kidding. Sorry, I couldn't help it. But the blood work we took of you is showing something here." If that was her way of getting Harry to back off, it almost worked. "Oh, here it is. You have a very, very minor cardiac arrhythmia, which means you have a slightly irregular heart beat. It's so mild that you haven't noticed it. The doctor will sign you off on some prescription medication that will prevent blood clots, but I doubt you'll be able to start on them very soon, since we currently have you on an antihemorrhagic to slow the bleeding from all your cuts."

"Geez, lady, what're you trying to do; give me a new heart condition, telling me I've got cancer?"

Eva put her nose to the clipboard, hiding a bashful look.

"It also says here that you're a smoker."

"Yeah, don't remind me." Of all the things he wished not to be reminded of, it had to be that. Great. Just great. When was he going to get out of this place?

"To that I have to say…" Eva placed the clipboard over on the counter and reached into her pocket. "Would you care to step outside for a cigarette?"

"A medical student who smokes?" Harry chuckled. "Never woulda guessed."

"What I hope you don't come close to learning too thoroughly about me is that, for an aspiring expert in medicine, I'm rather reckless when it comes to matters of my own body. I always had a greater desire to understand the extremities of the mind, and to do that I had to spend a lot of time searching my own. In that, I realized I don't fear bodily harm because the body is always weaker than the mind; it's nothing without a mind to power it. You could even say it's a slave to the mind."

A slave that acts on orders without question—yes, Harry could agree with that. His body and mind could both agree that a cigarette was indeed in order, and better yet, with Eva. Just as he finished pulling the hospital gown over his head, with Eva's help, needing the extra arm in place of his gimped one and to tie the strings around back, Doris and her parents were let in through the curtains. Eva flashed a quick smile and withdrew her hands.

"Mrs. Morgan and folks; good to meet you." Eva didn't know what to do with her hands. She picked up the clipboard and started flipping the pages over. Doris was glowering at Harry with a venomous look of the likes he'd never seen from her. His parents in-law shuffled uncomfortably near the opening in the curtain, seeming to pay attention to every staff member who rushed by, gawking at all the machines arranged in the tiny space of the room. Harry was used to all the equipment by now. He tended to adjust quickly to his surroundings. They were an odd couple, Doris' parents. Her mother; slender, petite, while her father's frame was stout. Smokers and drinkers both of them were, with histories of hereditary disease. It was clear this wasn't their favorite setting. It shouldn't be anyone's. For such tidy, sterile places, hospitals sure were dreary.

"Can we just have a minute with him? If that's okay," said Doris to Eva.

"Absolutely," the nurse answered. She shot Harry an alluring look before whisking through the curtain and shutting it behind her.

His in-laws kept their half-troubled, half-exhausted looks fixed on him. They had probably been driving all day, having taken Doris to the doctor, and now halfway across the state to a hospital. This is the last place he'd ever want to be, in her place.

"Harry," said Doris. He tilted his head and saw a growing redness in her eyes. A long, tiring drive was maybe to blame. No, she was fuming. He could barely return her look. He felt seconds away a slap across the face; in front of the in-laws, no less. That would be just perfect. _I wish they'd go the fuck away_. Doris walked over to him. He braced himself. She threw her arms over him and didn't dig her fingernails into him, didn't pound on his back, didn't spit or bite—not that she ever would do those things, but if ever it was called for, it was now. She rested her palms instead gently across his back, not daring to squeeze any harder than a slight touch, and sobbed on his shoulder. He could feel her warmth soaking through the gown. At length, she pulled away and examined his face closely, sniffling.

"What happened to your eye?"

"I don't know, but it's fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine. When the doctor comes back, I'll see if he'll let me go home. I want to get outta here and I know you guys don't wanna be here."

"No, Harry, it's okay," said Doris' father. He had a jolly, rosy, round face; always smiling—like a Santa Clause without a beard. Harry could never tell if he was being genuine or not. Judging by the disgusted grimace he had walked in with, he guessed there was some pretense going on. There had to be. "You're one tough bastard. Looks like you've been through Hell and back."

Harry never spoke much to either of his in-law parents, but knew enough about them that they'd never speak to him with such egalitarian obscenity, but his father in law would be the type to; like how neighbors joke, or long-time friends, or shipmen around an old whaling wharf. "Not yet, I haven't," he said.

"They said you wrecked your car," Doris sniveled, "and you were involved in a shooting."

Harry still couldn't recall a whole lot from the conundrum that got him here. There was so much noise outside of the car and, at the same, quiet claustrophobic confusion inside as soon as he had stirred awake. He had heard one loud sound, the distinct crack of a firing rifle, now that he thought of it, but just a flood of noise after that. And then, of course, the shattering glass in front of him; all around him.

"It's all pretty fuzzy," he answered.

"Do you remember what you were doing all day? You told me you were coming right back and never did." Doris' mother hugged her. "I was so scared." Harry rubbed his head.

"We can come back in a little while, Harry," said his mother in-law. "The doctor says you'll need to stay here for a good part of the night anyway."

Doris father nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's all right, Harry. We can go hit the cafeteria real quick and come back." He gathered his wife but Doris stayed put.

"I'll go with you in a minute. Right now I want to stay with him," Doris insisted. Her parents easily submitted and left the room.

"I know you don't like them," she said. "I 'm sorry for bringing them but I had no other way to get here, as you know."

"It's not that I don't like them," Harry said, shaking his head, "I just don't want them seeing me like this. I don't want anyone seeing me like this; shriveled and pathetic—especially not you, Doris. I shouldn't have called you to have you all come all the way out here. Ah, but you know these nurses; sometimes they know how to coax certain things out of you."

"Don't even say that. First of all, I'll come running, with or without my parents, whether you call me or not, the moment I hear you're hurt. I can't stand to see you hurt again, but the least I can do is be there with you and make sure you aren't alone, like last time. And this one was worse than the last one. They had machine guns, Harry! Second: you should have found a way to call me earlier. I've been sick at my stomach worrying about you all day. You need to tell me what's going on."

Harry slowly lifted his legs back onto the narrow bed and leaned back. This would go over a lot easier if he just laid out the truth right now and told the story for what it was, but how would Doris handle hearing her husband was held at gunpoint virtually all day? This would go over easier if he wasn't in this God-forsaken situation in the first place, and he was driving home; Clyde out of his life, those Cubans or whoever attacked him, never to be heard from again. This would go over a lot easier if he could just have a cigarette.

"So you want to know the truth?" Doris wobbled her head up and down disjointedly, desperately.

"I was riding with an informant and things got a little messy." It was a very brief version, but it was the truth. Still it didn't satiate her; in fact, it set a spark off in her eyes—Harry could see it—a very subtle inflection of anger, a rekindling of betrayal. Her chest retracted, like she had been stung there. The last time Harry rode with an informant, it was with the female variety, the kind that Stan Liddy and his pals had turned him onto; the ones who lurked 79th street. It almost crippled their marriage before it had begun, whilst he and Doris were engaged.

"Before you get any ideas, it was a man, and we didn't meet under nearly the same circumstances."

"I hope not."

Harry smacked his face. "No, it's—see—where do I begin? I met him at the bar."

Doris twisted in disgust. "No, not like that," Harry said.

"You went straight back to the bar? I thought you were going to run back to the station and afterwards you'd take me to my appointment. We were supposed to spend the day together but instead you spend it with some guy—informant—you met at the bar. You're supposed to be off-duty."

"No, from the station to the Blue Corner to pick up my car and then home. But while I was in the parking lot heading towards my car, I see this guy, completely strung out or drunk or whatever, bashing out my window." Doris leaned in with new interest. "So I arrest him, using those zip-ties I keep in the glove compartment and then I make a quick pit stop to the house to drop your medication before I'd be hauling the guy off for booking at the station—" or so that's how it should have gone "—but it's all complicated after that. He gets a little rough with me, whatever. You don't want to hear all that."

She leaned closer, enough to touch him, and gently she did so, feeling the dressings swathed about his head, passing a thumb over the long thin gashes in his face, as tender as one would rub a finger over his eye to relieve himself of an annoying speck of dirt.

"Harry, why can't you just come out with it and tell me what's happened? You've never been one to keep secrets; the truth always pours right out of you, eventually. Remember your affair? I thought it would kill you to keep that bottled up for as long as you did. Out of respect, I avoided asking about it for the longest time, but I could tell—I can always tell when there's something askew in your world, Harry. I told myself I would never again try to sit by and watch something eat away at you like that did. Anything more serious, I imagine the guilt would kill you."

"I owned-up to it, didn't I?" Harry's tone was deep, sullen; not like someone who could rejoice for having skirted death, but who laments, knowing the nature of the life ahead of him—secrets, deceit, and half-truths that would contort his foundations, unravel his being, and if not, being the stubborn man he was, his husk would go unbroken, but inside would be left a boiling acid, a byproduct of harboring such darkness, that would one day spill out. Doris was right. A bigger secret may very well kill him one day. He wasn't sure what sort of training could prepare for that in the days ahead, but dark days ever loomed for Harry. When hadn't they?

"You're strong…brave…righteous. Whatever you did, whatever you may have faced today, I'm sure it was in for the sake of good. I'm your wife and I'll stick with you 'til the end of time, and if you don't want to tell me how you ended up looking like you've come out the other end of a sawmill then don't."

"The man I detained, while I had him in our driveway and I was in the house this morning, when I saw you, got out of his restraints and was waiting for me with a gun." He waited for Doris to absorb it, to twist into a ball, to scream for her parents, realizing at last she had made a mistake marrying this man, and run, saving herself while she still had time, before Harry's life burst off the track and shot out and ricocheted off the wall, marring any who stood near, or before the acid that might one day broil over began to stew. But Doris didn't do any of that. She nodded slow and smiled somewhat nervously to match, but she stayed put. Harry continued.

"When I got in the car he aimed the gun at me and told me to drive. And I did. He and I drove up the highway, all the way from Miami to Polk County. He gave me this sob story about how he was only trying to get home to his kids, whose mother was taken by these drug dealers he was in trouble with. Not far into Polk county, I had to stop and take my eyes off the road for a minute. We were then ambushed by a group of men with guns."

Doris dropped her head into her palms. Her voice, muffled through her fingers, said: "You're lucky they give you people guns. You never know what sort of nutcases you'll run into out there."

"I didn't have my gun with me, Doris." Harry sighed. Doris made no immediate sound or response. "It was a tough spot to be in, but I got out with my life and the other guy's life too. Because of my quick thinking he and I were able to survive, but I don't know…" Harry dwelled on his next thought. Doris looked up at him eagerly. "…it doesn't sit well with me having walked out of there alive. We should both be minced meat right now."

Doris thumbed a tear away from her face and giggled. "You partly are."

"That reminds me: I need to see how he's doing. For all I know, as stable as the doctors say he is, he could have developed some sort of blood clot or something ridiculous that went to his brain. Could you imagine? I had best just go check on him."

"That would be pretty anticlimactic, considering just what you two have already survived," said Doris, managing to smile through her sniffles. "You go ahead then. We'll have plenty of time to talk about it more on the way home."

They arranged to meet in the cafeteria once Harry finished checking up on Clyde. Harry's doctor wasn't around; neither was that geeky-looking guy with the glasses, or that enticing blonde nurse. He ventured down the hall into a sort of lobby with a desk and a few other nurses huddled around it. Opposite of him was another hall, and through a line of passing machinery some technicians were carting by, he marked two shapes wearing the familiar navy color of standard police blues. When the carts passed, he saw several police officers making their way down the opposite hall and most likely towards Clyde. The place looked empty enough. He reckoned not too many more criminals could have been getting hospitalized tonight. Possibly, the place was dead enough that Harry could slip by the nurses at the counter without detection—it was his job after all; to slip latently by, to exist as one of the shadows while harboring no obscurity in himself.

His rough skin underfoot tacked to the pristine, slick flooring. With the stupid bandaging on his eye he couldn't gauge his surroundings all at once; he had to swivel his head side to side as he crept hidden along the counter, looking more like an escaping psychiatric patient than anything. The hairs on his neck bristled as he heard someone shout his name, breaking the quiet drone of the near desolate emergency department lobby. He stood frozen. The police officers rounded the corner at the end of the hall ahead, passing out of sight.

"Harry Morgan," said the voice again; clear and certain, it sounded, and with a hint of satisfaction. Harry turned slowly to his right and stood up, only just then noticing a different hallway from which his view had been blocked. There stood a man in a blazer, smacking his chewing-gum with a devilish grin; his skin dark and rough under the dull tungsten light of the hospital corridor. "Miss me?" Stan Liddy held his smirk as he approached and sat against the back of the seats Harry had been sneaking along. Harry was frozen, as if chained to the floor.

"What the hell are you doing here, Liddy?"

"Better question is: what are _you _doing here?" That flagrant tone of his; clear and dry and yet thickened as a pristine cloth used to sop up tar. "I don't suppose this all has somethin' to do with a truck full of Cuban hitmen I've been tailing all day. Led me halfway up the state of Florida only to find the lot of 'em lassoed-up like a bunch 'a fawns. And what else do I find?—Harry Morgan's Dodge Dart left a smoldering heap, lookin' like it'd took a nosedive into the ditch, riddled 'long the driver's side with bullet holes. I get there and I'm thinkin' 'now this just don't add up. What's Harry Morgan got to do with these guys?' So what's goin' on, Harry? You in over your head or what?"

"Why don't you mind your own damn business, Liddy? So it happened we were after the same fish. Be glad it wasn't you who got run off the road by those pricks."

Liddy sucked in a breath through his clenched teeth, looking like he was ready to spit some snide remark, but instead he folded his arms and drew his eyes to a menacing squint. "You're supposed to be off duty. Mind explainin' to me how you ended up on the wrong end of these guys' machine guns?" Liddy's thin-lipped grin returned. "Or should I just act like I don't care about the safety of my fellow officer?"

"Why haven't I heard of these guys until it was almost too late while you seem to know enough about them to have followed them all the way here?"

Liddy's smirk suddenly wilted. "Never mind that. Can't you just be fucking thankful for once in your fucking life? Everyone makes you out to be this renowned hero, Matthews' golden boy, but you're just an ungrateful, arrogant prick just like everyone else who's ever been in your spot."

"Liddy, either you've been spying on me or you're keeping something big from the police chief. If these guys are so dangerous, why haven't you come forward with what you've found on them?"

"Either way, both outcomes are that I'm the slimy, two-timing snake while you're the shining star of Miami Metro. Let's just put it this way: we've both got secrets to hide and we ain't gonna look too good once they get out, 'cause trust me—they inevitably will. Whatever you and that Vietnam vet were up to is between you two and I won't say a word about it." Harry looked puzzled, but more appalled. "Your boy's dirty. What's his name? _Clyde?_ Uh-huh; sure. You're getting' yourself in deep, hangin' around him. I suggest you get your ass back to Miami right away. Sign yourself outta here, then you and yours hit the road. You don't want Matthews catching wind of this."

Harry could give a shit what sort of advice Liddy had to offer. For all he knew, Liddy was in the throes of working out some scheme to soil Harry's name, finally having found some ammo to frame him with, so that at last his way to the top will crack open. Just like Matthews. Just like the rest. Everyone could be conspiring against him, watching him, waiting for him to make a mistake and exploit him, using him. No—he may not look it all the time, but Harry had a firm hold on his sanity and such thoughts were, well, insane. Even so, it would be childish to repudiate any advice from a fellow officer, whether or not the knowledge used to build that advice was gathered through legal avenues.

Stan Liddy sauntered off, back down the hall, whistling, every now and then pausing his tune to smack on his gum. Harry could doubt this was the last he'd see of him any time soon. When it came to a matter of which man had the stronger will of heart, Harry always came out on top, and knowing that, he was sure he could withstand whatever Liddy was plotting. He simply wasn't going to let that sneaky bastard jerk him around. But for now, Harry had things to do and getting out of this hospital as soon as possible was, in fact, high on that list.

Harry continued down the hall ahead of him, unimpeded by any of the personnel at the counter in the lobby. It probably wasn't outlandish to assume they knew he was Clyde's arresting officer and was another cog in the police presence in the hospital that night. But as it were, Harry had no incite on what these police were all here for. It was a lot for just him and Clyde. And so far no other officer attempted to talk with him except Stan Liddy, which made it all the more unnerving. He turned the hallway corner and saw two policemen standing guard outside the fourth door on the left. He heard tools and electric instruments whining in the rooms on either side as he made his way down the hall. Doctors rushed in and out, blowing past him without a second look, all wearing masks and caps and aprons, some flecked with blood.

"Detective," one of the officers said with a nod as Harry approached the guarded room. He didn't recognize either of the two posted by the door. Most likely they were Polk County deputies. Harry returned the nod and checked the name on the door: _Clyde Robinson_, it read. His Clyde? With his free hand, he turned the knob on the door. Both officers immediately seized him by the shoulders, not minding in the least his arm that was in the sling.

"You can't go in there, sir. We're under strict orders not to let anyone in or out—even you."

"Orders from whom? This case is out of your jurisdiction, boys."

"From Lieutenant Thomas Matthews, sir. He named you specifically and told us not to let you through. The guy's in surgery right now anyway, so it's probably for the best you stay out."

Harry kneaded his temples with his thumb and index finger. Had he heard that correctly? "Lieutenant Matthews told you that?"

"Yes. Now back up or we'll be forced to get rougher with you than you're suited for at the moment."

As much as Harry believed he could take these two without need of an extra arm and an eye, he stepped down. The toxic haze of his troublesome woes now was scuttled apart and struck through by a gale of clear wind, though a harsh and frigid wind, nonetheless. How could Tom have known? "Liddy," Harry's throat rattled, "that son of a bitch. This was his doing." In his haze, feeling like he was better off going back to his hospital bed and lying down for a while, where he could afterwards wake up and his time at the hospital would have all been a vivid, though sultry dream, he trudged off to find the cafeteria in this wretched place.

He hobbled his way down a half-lit stairwell to find a huge empty seating area, save for a table in the center, occupied by his wife and in-laws. The seating area too was dimly lit, mostly by the lights of a steaming kitchen in the corner of the room. The place seemed it was functioning under a skeleton crew. It must have been later than Harry guessed. It was too dark to see the time on his trusty watch. He couldn't recall going to sleep. He remembered the ambulance technicians wheeling him in, and faint glimpses of things being pulled over him, wrapped around him, stuck in and yanked out of him—all such a blur. The long car ride; only bits and pieces were clear. The ripping noise of gunfire had dwelled in the back of his mind and now rang clear in his ears. All the more disorientating. He collapsed into the chair next to his wife. She sat up to catch him just a second too short. They were all quietly enjoying ice cream cones. A cup substituted a cone for Harry, which awaited him atop the table, in front of the seat he picked. He looked down at it. Plain vanilla; two quickly flattening mounds amid a growing puddle—how he was beginning to feel. He coughed at an itch in his throat.

"Clyde Robinson is his name," he said, quaking. "I'm going to have to get his address, call his…his kids' caretaker, go there myself, whatever I have to do, and tell them what happened to their dad. I'll let them know it wasn't his fault. It was mine."

Doris' father licked his ice cream insatiably, by now probably on his second or third cone. Doris and her mother watched him in silence, waiting for him to say something to Harry, because it was usually he who had the courage to when Harry got like this around them. But he continued to devour his ice cream until it was gone. And then, finally, with a belch, said: "You were only doing your job, Harry. You're a cop and your job is to protect the innocent. You were doing what you thought was right."

"I don't know this Clyde fellow. I'm sure he's really nice," Doris added. "Even though he wanted to kill you, in some sick way, I'm sure he's just a dandy guy otherwise, but don't think it's your fault that whatever baggage he had gotten twisted in came down on you both when it did. Your job isn't to give a lift to every deadbeat dad in need of a ride back home. What would have happened after you'd gotten him home? You were going to bring this loser back to his kids only to have him fall back to where he was?"

"There's no one looking after them, or so he tells me. I'm still not sure if he was just guiding me to some remote place to blow my head off for whatever messed-up reason. I just didn't see any lie in his eyes, not when he was sitting in the passenger seat after we crashed, in that broken shell of a car. He could have shot me then with his last ounce of strength, but didn't. I'm left more in his debt than he is in mine, and I don't feel like I'm doing well so far in reimbursing him."

Doris' parents both nodded simultaneously—her father still nose deep in his ice cream cone. "What you did was very noble, Harry," said Doris' mother, her voice much like her daughter's—soft and comforting, like a pleasant breeze. "But those children will find a new home. Child Protective Services will make sure of it, now that other police are on the case."

This quieted Harry, or suppressed his urge to argue; to flip the table and let out the roar broiling in the pit of his guts, knowing that was not going to be enough, that no matter what glorious, career-defining task Matthews had lined up for him in the next few weeks, he failed his duty as a cop this day. _The guilt would kill you_, Doris had said to him. A bit of a hyperbole, but Harry could agree that guilt struck him deeper than most afflictions that can be done to the soul. But to avoid twice as much looking like the lunatic he already appeared, needing something like a straight jacket to top it all off, he composed himself and wrestled with his thoughts in the quiet darkness of the cafeteria while his family contently got back to their ice cream.

A soft pitter-patter of graceful footsteps fell on the empty room. Harry looked back towards the stairwell and out came Eva, wearing a polite smile; either wholehearted or nervous, not like the kind people at the precinct wear around him. Her clipboard in hand, she took a seat near the Morgans and in-laws.

"The doctors are looking for you, Harry. But it's okay. I assured them you'd want some time to stretch your legs, or…" Harry stared stupefied back at her, unmoving, with the spoon in his mouth. The others paused too in their ice cream indulging. "…to come down for ice cream. You know, the hospital cafeteria isn't the first place I'd choose when picking up an ice cream cone. I'd expect different from someone of your…specific tastes, Mr. Morgan."

Harry couldn't help but raise an intrigued smile. Doris shot him a puzzled, slightly indignant look. She was a sweet thing, his wife, but it was hard for Harry to slip anything by her, especially when he wasn't trying to. It was a hidden, sort of fiery sense about her that Harry hadn't really ever seen the brunt of.

"And how did you come to determine such stipulations about me, nurse?"

Harry discovered Eva's eyes were not so shy the longer he stared into them. In fact, he could feel them delving deeper than he might have wanted, and after staring long enough, it was he who had to shy away.

"You know what you like and you know how to get it. That much is no secret. You wanted to be with your family and here you are. Unless, Mr. Morgan, this hospital ice cream is to your preference."

Harry hadn't told her or even let on that he wanted to be with his family. If she could read him, and he was not one to hide what was to be read, she would have seen he enjoyed her company to that of his wife, for at least the sole reason that there was little he could do to hurt her. It was her place to know the facts, however grim or shameful—it was her job. Had the psychology student read him wrong? Or had she read him all too well, and fabricated a little shred of a white lie to cover for him. At any rate, it was clear in the charming amusement she stared at him with that she knew Harry would not be able to tell either way.

"How's our big bad crime fighter gonna fare? What's the recovery time?" asked Doris' father.

Eva glanced at her clipboard. "Ah, good news there. The lesion done to his right eye is not as severe as it may seem. He should regain full eyesight in it within, oh, about three or four weeks. His arm should heal up sooner if he can take it easy, get his rest."

"What about the cuts all over him?" Doris said.

Eva reached over Doris to gently pull down Harry's gown so that the small cuts all around his collarbone and shoulders were visible, as if to make an inference of her own about them.

"Those on the chest, neck, and shoulders might leave some minor scarring, but not on the face. You see, the face has a lot of blood vessels, so it tends to heal remarkably well." She stood up, looking over the family with her polite smile, holding the clipboard tight to her, as was her persona: flauntless and reserved. "Fortunately, he'll be left with almost no other scars, other than the memory of the incident."

With that the nurse bid them "good night." Harry yanked his hand free of Doris' and skipped after Eva before she made it to the stairwell and out of his sight for another unforeseen amount of time. He had to talk to Clyde and maybe she could help. He had to once more get a taste of that charming English accent of hers.

"Nurse," he called. "Eva." She paused just inside the doorway of the stairwell. Neither of the two looked back to see Doris' reaction to this sudden convulsion for Harry to go running after her.

"Do you know what's up with the guy who they brought in with me? Clyde, uh…Clyde Robinson. There were two policemen guarding his room. When I approached, letting them know I was the arresting officer and that they could stand down, they told me that he was in surgery and that my superior officer told them not to let me through regardless. I doubt you're informed on the police business, but does that sound, I don't know, fishy to you?"

Eva poked her head back through the doorway again, and seeing no one else that wasn't there before in the cafeteria, closed the double doors. She glanced up the shaft of the stairwell and then pulled Harry to a corner. She leaned in close and spoke softly into his ear.

"It's a decoy. He's in a different room. There's no surgery going on, either. They don't want me telling you anything, or even talking to you at all. What I said about being told to avoid any police who come into the hospital was a lie."

Harry gulped. "So you're not a psychologist?"

"No, I am. They just told me to be wary of you specifically. But I don't follow instructions very well." Eva grinned as she veered her piercing, searching eyes onto Harry's. Assuredly, his returning look was that of a dumbfounded and yet highly stimulated man. "You're harmless, for the most part. It's a shame I won't know you long enough to find out what the mystery is about you though. Clyde is in the room at the end of the same hallway as the decoy on the right—the very last door. I can create a distraction for the two policemen."

"Decoy?" Harry murmured to himself. Eva reopened the double doors into the cafeteria and started up the stairwell. "What's the point of the decoy?" Harry called up to her.

"I'm not informed on 'police business,' as you say," she retorted teasingly. "But I imagine it's to prevent another attack like the one that just happened to the both of you. Or there is some other danger lurking in the wake of the two of you. Either way, I can only speculate. Although it's obvious someone wants one or two of you dead."

Harry didn't want to even imagine wrapping his head around that notion. He didn't want to think on it all for the moment, not while this enthralling English nurse was in the same vicinity as him.

"Can I still take you up on that cigarette? After I see Clyde, if that's all right."

Eva paused at the junction between stairs, looking down over the railing. "I'm sorry Mr. Harrison Morgan, but we don't know each other. Never have. But I can't help if you happened upon _this_, and after reflecting on it in the future, near or distant, you decide you need someone to talk to."

She produced something tiny and rectangular and dropped it down the shaft. Harry let it spin in and twirl lightly down, into his palm. Before he could look up, Eva was gone. On a little stiff piece of paper in his palm read: _Evelyn Vogel, Psychiatrist_. Also written was a phone number but no address. Harry tucked it into his waistband, hoping the doctors wouldn't be venturing there for any reason. He'd see if he could avoid another interaction with them altogether. Just as he heard Eva's light stroll fade off into the hallway overhead, the cavalcade of his family's many feet drew up abruptly from behind.

"Lemme go check on Clyde and we can get the hell outta here," said Harry, turning to them.

"We'll go work on checking you out," said Doris.

"That is," said her mother, "only if you think you're well enough." Doris' father nodded in concurrence. Harry smiled and put his arm around Doris. He was her warrior. No matter how much she despised seeing him in pain, she knew when he could handle it.

Harry climbed with his family up the stairs and they parted ways at the ED lobby. A few nurses and physicians lingered at the desk, but the police down the hall were gone. Faintly, Harry could detect the fragrance of flowery laundry detergent in the space Eva must have recently occupied and in some unseen corner he heard her lovely accent, though he couldn't make out the words. The distraction was surely in place. Harry had to move.

He breezed past the fourth door on the left. _Clyde Robinson,_ he mouthed, unable to resist the name tag on the door. Was it a name quickly devised for the decoy? No—any true enemies of his who knew where to find him would know his correct last name. He pressed on, down to the very last door, until the corridor became sparse of any doors at all, many of which were custodial closets or were labeled _Staff Only_. The room was quiet and sort of dark from what he could tell through the opaque window. He tried the doorknob and it wiggled freely. Slowly he entered.

Clyde lie sitting up in a bed, amid a room matching the one Harry had stayed in, riddled with the same equipment and mechanisms, save for additional oxygen supplies. Clyde was shirtless and had bandaging wound tight over his torso, up to his armpits. His hair was shaven bald on one side to allow the physicians to stitch a cut over his ear. He was switching channels on TV in the corner of the room tuned to a near inaudible volume. When he saw who his visitor was he put his hand over his mouth.

"Harry?" he said through his fingers.

"Kept you waiting, huh?" Harry found a stool next to the bed to sit on. He scanned the room once more before letting his eyes settle on the TV set.

"You shouldn't be in here," said Clyde, trying to stay quiet but unable to hold in a delighted laughter in his voice. "I mean, what if some more of those guys barge in here while the place is dead like this and finish the job. You'd go down with me. Obviously you can handle yourself but not like that, I bet."

"Good to see you too," said Harry. He kept fixated on the TV. There was some commercial for a new Dodge truck playing. A man in a suit stood in the foreground of the advertisement, annunciating in the most obnoxious manner all the truck's features. The companies that ran these ads must vouch for them to be louder than the actual show, because Harry could hear it quite well, tuned low as it was. "Double, triple…however big your crew, we've got the cab for you!" He snatched the remote from Clyde and switched off the TV.

"Didn't think I'd come to check on you, or what?"

"Not so soon. I thought you'd be preoccupied for a while more. I thought the doctors' questions would never end. I did see a cute blonde come through here. She checked my name and took off. That's about the highlight of my stay here so far. How you hangin'?"

"I'm getting ready to check myself out. I figured I'd see you off beforehand. Being your arresting officer and all, it's my responsibility to see to it that your detainment is carried out and filed properly." Clyde tweaked an eyebrow at him. "By that I mean: lemme give you my phone number, you know, so we can follow up."

Harry scribbled the number of his home phone line as best he could with his left hand on a paper towel and set it on Clyde's stomach.

"So you aren't gonna take me to jail?"

"No, I'm going home. I need to get rested up. I've got a big couple of weeks ahead of me. I don't have a car anymore for anyone to break into, not that I'd do much driving, so I doubt there'll be any other unwarranted variations in my plans."

"I'm sorry, buddy. I just…today was crazy. I was ready to fucking off myself this morning, and now here I am—here we are—bloodied, bruised."

"I'm the one who should be sorry. I almost got you back home to your kids and now I've got to turn around and leave you here. But don't worry; I'll let my lieutenant know that you're in my care, so these other cops here won't be able to hassle you. Don't try running from me though. I'm sure someone here can give me your address. One way or another I'd find you; I'm a good detective." Harry would never actually go through such hassle with so problematic an acquaintance. In fact, he was beginning to regret giving his phone number to him. "And those drug dealers—Hector Astrada—I'll run the name through the database as soon as I get back and we'll find something that'll lock these fuckers up." Now he had two Cuban pieces of shit to attend to; one, a clear and present danger to at least two innocent young lives, and the other a stretch out of reach but a threat to his whole city. There was plenty of time before the mission Matthews put him on would commence. The more of these guys put away, the merrier.

"Hey, no, no. You did more for me than I could have ever asked. You got me far enough." He hacked a long, wheezing cough. "If those motherfuckers hand't..." He coughed again. "Ah, whatever. At least we're here: alive. I just can't stop going over in my head how they could have found us all the way out here. I mean, I don't think we were followed."

"You don't think so? It wouldn't have been hard for them; they would have caught up with us eventually after we left that seafood place."

"Na-ah. I don't think those guys were the same kinda trouble that found us in that field. I've been around enough cartel guys to know they don't run like those two did. And they definitely don't go out on lunch dates like that, if we're thinkin' they're the same guys who brutally kill anyone who crosses them. But I don't know how else they could have found us. Wrong place wrong time?"

Most people like Harry don't believe in coincidences. He was never quick to judge any manner of circumstance that he wasn't previously apart of, and in that same token, he knew he'd be a fool not to realize that things might not always be as they seem. With only doubts to go off of, he shrugged at Clyde.

"Get your rest. I'm sure when those police down the hall come back it won't be easy for anyone to slip past once they see that I have. And you have my word: I will find Hector Astrada and take him down. Your girlfriend Laura and your kids are gonna be okay." Harry stood and repositioned the paper towel with his phone number on it, in case Clyde hadn't noticed it yet. "Don't lose this," he said as he started out the door.

"Wait!" Clyde coughed, flailing his arms towards the door. "Don't!"

Harry quickly withdrew his hand, just in time, as the door burst open. He leapt back but saw nowhere he could go in so confined a space. Was there a window? There wasn't time to look—he was had. The attacker who stood just as frozen as he was in the doorway was of gruff complexion and stout body. It was a woman, he realized; a husky one, and she carried two armfuls of…_of children_? Two toddlers, one for each stocky bicep of hers, rested in peaceful slumber as the woman stood motionless.

"I wanted to surprise you," Clyde laughed, trying now to whisper, but his voice was so hoarse he could barely manage. "I guess I did anyway. This is my neighbor, Anita, and those two little rascals are my boys, Brian and Dickie."

The woman nearly fell over with the leap she did backwards as Harry inched close to get a look at the kids. He chuckled, both out of amusement and astonishment that they were here in front of him.

"Is he cool?" The neighbor squeaked, surprisingly demure.

"Yes, darlin', he's cool."

The woman allowed Harry a touch of each boys' scruffy little heads; one jet black and one sandy red. Both snoozed in her arms without a sound, enveloped deep in whatever wonderful dreams children that age could have. Harry imagined how terrified they'd be if they woke and saw who was touching them; a one-eyed, one-armed mullet man. He looked up at the woman and saw she had a mullet too, and was otherwise no less rough around the edges as he, and yet these two cherubs could sleep soundly in her company. Their life, he realized, was already one full of bitter sights.

"I know what you're thinkin' Harry," said Clyde. "It's a damn shame the way these kids've got it. That's why I need your help. If only for the sake of those two boys, I hope you find Hector Astrada and waste his sorry ass, or do somethin' about him once and for all. As long as he's around, he's going to continue to be a fucking problem."

"He'll be tried, like everyone else," said Harry as he watched Clyde's neighbor gently rock the two youngsters, taking them deeper to sleep; so innocent that sight, so sublime. "He's slipped under my radar for this long so far, so he'll be a tough one to catch, but now more than ever do I want to catch him."

"Good," said Clyde, "'cause you're the only one I can trust doing this. You're different than any other cop I've met. Most other cops would have chucked me in the pin by now, cycled me through like any other douchebag and then, who knows? Maybe I'd wind up dead the next day. Though I'm not feeling a hundred percent now, I feel better having met you, Harry Morgan."

Harry wasn't sure he could say the same back. Even so, he had his job to do, and that job was what he lived for. He waved Clyde and Anita goodbye, and to Dickie and Brian, waved just with his finger and left to find Doris and her folks. Signed out or not, he was leaving the hospital tonight


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note****:** Here's another one of these. I can't help myself. This one felt long (that's what she said) but, again, it's the setting of the stage. The pacing is a bit different in the beginning of this chapter. Also, just to be clear, sometimes I'll use sarcasm in the narration, which might be confusing. For example, the part in this chapter where I say something about Miami's citizens being "an illustrious and benevolent people," I mean it sarcastically. In the last chapter we met Evelyn Vogel, and you might be thinking: "what the hell is she doing in Florida this early on?" I actually didn't plan for her and Harry to meet already but I realized it works even better with the idea I have for the whole story. So stay tuned! And thanks to sappy3 for the review! I hope this chapter clears some things up for you.

**Chapter 5**

**As the Chisel to Alabaster**

The crickets whined in the trees all around the desolate four-way intersection—something of a back road nobody ever had the sense to use during the peak of afternoon rush hour. And yet the topmost of the three bulbs of the traffic light stayed red, and no one else besides Harry was around to see it. It felt like it stayed red for five whole minutes, that stupid light, mocking him. Contemplatively he stroked a long, handlebar moustache starting to come in thick over and around his lip. It made for something to do with his hands during these prolonged episodes of thinking to himself when they came about. A Neil Diamond song broke through the chatter as Harry turned the dial in Doris' station wagon. The light could stay red for another five minutes for all he cared now. Every minute alone was precious. Although, all too often did he cast his aimless thought at wondering exactly what point was it before leaving the hospital two weeks ago had everything gone wrong.

The light switched in almost the time it took for the song to switch and Harry pulled into the pharmacy around the next block. 27th Avenue, alongside Miami Dade College, was blocked-up for miles. Now to have sat in that would have been new level of mockery. Harry had lived in Florida long enough; he knew better. There wouldn't be a little white bag of Doris' meds for Harry to pick up here. Toilet paper was still on sale at this place and it was about time to restock. And besides, it was fair exchange for getting to use the car today. Toilet paper—the most humiliating of necessities, but a necessity nonetheless, like gas for the car, or Tylenol after a long night of solitary carousing, or catching Scooby Doo on Saturday morning, or, as of two weeks ago, not leaving the house without his pistol.

Harry had been out for the third time this week practicing his shot at the gun range. Today was the first day his gimped shoulder hadn't sent him home early, but he still couldn't quite manage aiming with just his left eye. If it weren't for all the complements he got on his fancy, leather eye patch that he picked up at the local flea market, he'd have been laughed out of the place with the sloppy shooting he was doing. He was never all that great of a shot anyway.

He pulled into his and Doris' quiet corner of the northern Miami suburbs. As he rolled into the driveway he heard a distant sound of voices arguing in Spanish. Even on his comely street it was common to hear the neighbors loudly bickering from time to time, but today it sent shivers up his spine. The area proved to be a relatively safe neighborhood so far. He picked a place right across from and elementary school. Maybe that had something to do with it. He needed to forget what happened two weeks ago. He needed to do more driving, more practicing at the range to clear his head. He needed to concentrate on the mission ahead of him.

He carried his rifle cases inside and put them back in their cabinet, being extra careful with his old Mosin Nagant. Now there was a weapon with character, with antiquity; not like any of his twenty-two caliber hunting rifles. His handy PB pistol was designed to only fire tranquilizer rounds, so for practice with a suppressed weapon, he switched for his twenty-two caliber Ruger Mark II pistol, which he only broke out at the gun range. He didn't even keep live ammunition for it at home. And though the Ruger would have been easier to convert into a tranquilizer gun, the PB pistol was special to him. He preferred the blocky look of the Russian Markarov. Something about it compared to the Ruger, with its sleek, needlepoint barrel and sportsmanlike symmetry, made the PB pistol feel more twisted, unconventional, and all the more dangerous in his hand. Or maybe he just told himself that. Above all, there was history in that gun; more than in the date the Russian manufacturers had produced it on, thereafter it would find Harry's gun cabinet somewhere along the line of its life.

He never would forget one fateful day in October of 1968, back when Harry was a scrawny-armed, greasy-haired pipsqueak, barely out of his teens. Then, he was lean and green; supple, amiable. His soft hide would be bolstered and beaten, as the chisel to alabaster, to refine him into something the police academy had never intended to dispense from its production line into the world.

An old, quiet man, who used to live across the street, who always greeted Harry with a friendly wave as he left for work, had one day caught Matthews' ever prying eye. Always trying to go above and beyond, always fishing for the new big case that would earn him the next promotion, Matthews uncovered that Harry's neighbor had been running a child pornography business out of his house. Harry, then only a grunt working VICE, was approached by this new lieutenant who had come in from upstate. "Officer Morgan," said a five or six year younger Tom Matthews to a fresh and ambitious Harry Morgan. "I may have a little assignment for you. You live up near the college, in Hialeah right? How well do you know your neighbor across the street?" Next thing he knew, Harry was crawling around back of his neighbor's house in the small hours of the night with this hulking laser microphone and night vision goggles. He didn't ask where the stuff came from, or what sort of strings Matthews had to pull to get the all-clear on this job. He couldn't imagine the evidence he'd gather would even be considered, let alone not land Matthews in hot water when it arrived on the police chief's desk. But it was just like in the spy movies—not at all what he expected coming out of the training academy. What might have become of his career if he refused this special task? He found himself wondering this all too often as of late, longingly, over a hard drink. Would he have let innocent children continue to fall victim to this deranged, two-faced old coot? "Not a chance," he would have answered back then, but now, he couldn't think of many things he wouldn't change for everything to go back to how it was.

That very night five years ago Harry made a discovery that altered his life forever. His directional microphone picked up a strange, archaic radio chatter from inside his neighbor's house. As soon as Matthews threw on the headphones of the recording Harry collected, he knew they were dealing with something else entirely. Harry had recorded a coded message coming in from Russia. Matthews then lurched close to Harry and asked if he could trust him. Harry answered, confused but firm, that he indeed could; he didn't have the balls—or didn't have the brains to turn him down. Matthews spoke nothing of the late-night stake outs that would ensue after that night to any other soul at the station. As it turned out, the old man was a KGB sleeper cell who had been involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis and was taking refuge in the quiet suburbs of Miami. Wrong place-wrong time for him. He had stepped into Tom Matthew's neck of the woods, where nothing eluded his all-seeing eye. Harry didn't question how Matthews had gotten the permissions, but he was instructed to make an official arrest. The police found multitudes of Soviet weaponry and transmitting equipment inside the house. Among it all was a neat little Makurov silenced pistol that, after convincing the head forensic investigator against simply melting it at a steel refinery, Harry was able to keep as a souvenir. And though the thing never let him down, it marked, to him, the beginning of a new Harry Morgan and he embraced it to the fullest. His efforts on that operation earned him Detective status. Matthews had a new sidekick who was agile, efficient, and could keep his mouth shut about their continued unsanctioned crime-fighting efforts. When he had accepted the gun, accepted his promotion, he stepped into a new world. He had no idea of the strife that would follow him.

The smell of green peppers and onion wafted into his bedroom. He stowed the new stock of toilet paper in its appropriate place under the bathroom sink and headed into the kitchen.

"Tacos for dinner?" he asked.

Doris' back was turned to him while she toiled away over a steaming stovetop. The TV blared loud in the next room, struggling over the noise of sizzling vegetables. She turned a cheek to him and smiled. Her face was lush and full of color; or her face was partly cooked by all the steam.

"Enchiladas," she corrected cheerfully.

She whipped up two plates and set them on the small dining table. Then she wiped her forehead on her sleeve, standing over the table, bushed, but in satisfaction. Harry took it as an invitation to come sit. This didn't look like dinner as usual. Usually the two of them would take their plates to the sofa and kick back in front of the TV. If they were feeling fancy, they'd vitiate over a glass of wine each. If they were feeling particularly sociable, they'd go out to a nice place, usually at the incitement of Tom Matthews and his entourage. But when Doris set the table like this, she had an announcement to make; like when she told Harry her parents were coming down or that she had lost her job.

"Something came in the mail for you today. I think you should open it and see what it is." Doris retrieved a shoebox-sized package from the corner of the kitchen counter where she kept her purse and keys and things, and set it in front of Harry.

"What, a present? Over enchiladas? How romantic," Harry said with a giggle. It wasn't his birthday. It wasn't their anniversary. That was exactly one hundred and sixty-seven days away. Harry wouldn't miss it. No there was something to this, as could be told by Doris' unamused expression. Harry hesitated to check the return address. There was none.

"What do you think it is?" Doris asked, staring warily at the box as Harry judged the weight of it in his hands. It had a bit of weight but the shape of what was inside was masked by tightly packed shipping material.

"I don't know. I haven't spoken to anyone but the lady at the pharmacy and the gas station clerk since getting out of the hospital. It could be from Matthews, but private as he is, he'd still leave an address on the box."

Harry was certainly curious but he set the package aside. Doris eyed it like a cat eyes a dangling string, like she wanted to rip it open and see for herself; or like she wanted to snatch it and throw it away.

"I'll open it later. Is that was this is about?"

Doris shook her head, as if trying to put the box out of her thoughts. She still hadn't sat down yet. "No, I thought I'd bring it up, but there's something else…"

"Well, what is it?" Harry chuckled, relieved he didn't have to worry about the strange package for right now.

"I…um…I have…" she stuttered.

_Oh good. Nothing too life-altering_, Harry thought. Anything like that she would have already come out with. She was so preciously modest, but underneath that sometimes bashful demeanor was a strong and sure heart. If it was something severe or in some way revolutionary there would be no apprehension out of her.

"When are we going to try for a baby?" She finally said.

"Ah geez, Doris." Harry felt his chest deflate with relief. "You really wanna bring that up now?"

She finally took her seat, grinning. She knew this would get a rise out of him.

"I thought you didn't want kids." Harry said.

"I didn't want to get married either. That was your sort of your idea."

"Oh please! You said you had all this pressure from your parents to get married."

"You don't have to deny it," Doris teased. Harry stopped chewing for a second. "That's what two people who love each other do: get married, have kids."

"That's not what I'm getting at. I've always wanted to have a family. Never really belonged to one growing up. My folks, if you remember, don't and never did want anything to do with me. But I think what we've got is already enough. It's all I could ever ask for."

"But you know how much I've always wanted a daughter."

Harry shook his head slowly, knowing she wouldn't like his response. "What if it's a boy? What if we end up with a Harry Jr. on our hands? You really wanna bring another hard-head like me into the world?"

"Harry, stop it. You'll be a great father. I couldn't imagine a better one; a father who knows right and wrong better than anybody; a father who's strong, brave, protective."

"Consider what we'd be doing if we had a kid with the way things are going right now. You and I are both out of work. This place is barely able to fit just the two of us, let alone a third family member. And as much as I like it so far, this neighborhood isn't the sort of area I'd want my kid to grow up in."

"But you said you knew a safe neighborhood when you see one."

It's true; he did—safe for himself and Doris, the only people he had to protect from the dangers of the world. She was his pride and joy. They could live at the edge of Hell and still he'd keep her safe. But children? Did he want to introduce a pure, innocent life to the nasty, harsh existence that was planet earth? Sure the world wasn't all bad (which was hardly a declaration one could make knowing Miami as a home and basing a perception of the rest of the world on so 'illustrious' and 'benevolent' of a people) but Harry couldn't bear to have the slightest drop stain that clean slate forever because of him. There was nothing more pure than the life of a child to him, and to have any say in the direction of so divine and beautiful a structure, a gift of God, to have so gracious a thing spoilt on his behalf, would fill him with such a guilt that undoubtedly would, as Doris said, kill him.

"Doris, how did it feel when you came to see me in the emergency room two weeks ago?"

She reached out and felt his face, gliding her gentle touch over the pink abrasions across his nose and cheekbones. Her eyes lingered on his eye patch. "Awful," she said.

"Then imagine if something like that happened to your child."

"It would ruin me to see you hurt like that again, as it would to see a child of mine hurting at all, but those scars will heal. Wounds heal. As much as we may want to, we can't protect the people we love from everything that can harm them. People have their own lives, and no matter what we do, our child's life will be hers to lead." She smiled. "Or _his_, if that's how you'd have it."

Harry scarfed up the rest of his enchilada and excused himself. "All I'm sayin' is, let's see what happens with my job. Matthews says I'm looking at a promotion in the near future. Let's see how that goes, let things get steady again, and we'll discuss it then."

He looked over his shoulder as he washed off his plate in the sink. "Is that what you wanted to talk about?"

Doris twirled her food around on her plate, nodding despondently. She then pointed to the box Harry had pushed to the edge of the table. "Yeah but what about that? Are you going to open it?"

Harry fetched a beer out of the fridge. "Right now, I'm gonna watch some TV."

Doris joined him on the sofa in the living room. Harry saw that night had settled in the front yard through the window. Some Clint Eastwood movie was on; he couldn't tell which. He'd switch to the news and then go right back. Another murder. Another sicko out on in the streets, still at large, and he was here, with his feet up on the coffee table and a beer in his hand, sitting cozy while his arms and legs and breath could be put to better use catching criminals. It wouldn't do any good to hear the details on the investigation. He switched the station. On the international news station was a black and white photograph of a hundred or so men filling the seats of an airplane, cheering, throwing their hands in the air. _The last of the Vietnam POWs come home_, the headline at the bottom read. Harry didn't know much about war, but imagined he didn't have the kind of courage it must have took to endure the pain those men were dealt. He watched the news enough to know the war was a catastrophe and that the United States didn't come out the victor, but after looking at the joy on the faces of those men on the screen, some battered, bandanged, blackened with ash and soot, he realized there was never any victory in war. The victory was coming home alive. That's what would get him through it, had that fateful duty ever fell upon him.

He thought of Clyde. A braver man than him, he deemed, but full of a stupid bravery that nearly got the both of them killed. How he made it through the same misfortune that those men in the photographs on TV had he would never guess.

"Ugh, the news is so depressing. Can we watch something else?" Doris said.

"I'm done watching TV. I'm gonna…step outside for a sec." Harry jumped off the couch in a hurry, accidentally pushing himself up with his injured arm in his haste. He grumbled in pain as he scurried to his bedroom to snatch up his smokes and he went for the front door. His hand twisted the doorknob uselessly. He felt like he hardly had any command over his appendages. His vision faded in and out of seeing double for a split second. A feeling of faint came over him.

"What's the matter? Where are you going?" said Doris.

"I'm just getting some air. Just right outside."

"You aren't going to smoke a cigarette, are you? Remember what the doctor told you."

Harry couldn't keep it from her for long. She found the receipt in the last prescription pick-up Harry had brought home—one bottle of her clindamycin and Harry's verapamil prescription for his irregular heartbeat. She was on the phone every day last week talking with that damn doctor.

"I just need to…gather my thoughts. Is that gonna be okay?"

Doris said nothing. She only returned a soft look of disappointment. Harry knew it pained her to see him like this, struggling in any way, especially in this strange manner that had possessed him as of late. He wondered if he'd ever be able to express what was truly irking him. For now, though, he needed that cigarette.

Two in and he felt no different. His fingers twitched. He saw spots and squiggly things in his view, even in his covered eye. He blinked feverishly to erase them. He hadn't felt like this since coming home with a fresh bullet wound and seeing Doris' reaction. That sting of guilt burned like a burning spike through his heart; the guilt of letting down the one person he cared for, that cared for him, almost leaving his world behind and, in turn, ruining hers. Why had he felt like this now? It only just now hit him. He'd stayed away from his cigarettes for the entire two weeks before this moment. Another long night was in store, he could already tell.

He woke up beside Doris the next morning from a dreamless sleep. It was still dark outside. The fog of freshly waking up was replaced by a jittering all throughout his limbs. It was like the opposite; all things were vividly clear. He eyed the package mailed to him set atop the dresser on the other side of the bedroom. Doris was sound asleep. Whatever was in the box couldn't possibly do any worse damage than had already been dealt. The sick things that he'd seen from the Cuban cartel as their means of sending messages to people who'd crossed them ran through his imagination; images of hewn body parts, twisted and contorted at the will those heartless fiends, all to communicate their ruthless agenda. Harry strode closer to the box, as if in a nightmare he couldn't wake from, and saw before him the box laid open and inside was Clyde's severed head. "Back off the investigation of Hector Astrada or else," was the message there. What was this that was unfolding before him? What the hell had he walked into two weeks ago? No assignment Matthews ever gave him could absolve him of this.

For a man of truth, seeing things for what they were was never so difficult. He held the box in his hands. The packing tape was intact. The thing was nowhere near the weight of a human head_. It's nothing I can't handle_, he told himself as he studied the handwritten lettering on the mailing address. It was very fine and neat; it could practically pass as type._ I mean, come on. Get it together, Harry._ His only clue as to whom it was from was that it was somebody who knew his first and last name and where he lived. He ran through the database in his head of all whom fit this criteria, going as far as the records clerk at the station whom he had over for dinner one time and had been over to her house several times. She had helped him with an investigation that led to a salary bump, so it was seemed appropriate they get acquainted, although Doris might not have thought so. She was a bit on the heavy side, this woman. He hoped Doris wouldn't take him for that kind of guy. But why her? Why would anyone contact him in this fashion? All would be told as soon as he opened the damn thing.

He sliced the tape down the middle and peeked inside. Underneath a load of packing peanuts was a glass bottle of some sort of dark fluid. He removed it and saw in the light of the lamp on the dresser it was an unopened bottle of Coca-Cola. He let out a small breath, half out of relief, half out of befuddlement. Not the message he expected, but a message nonetheless.

He went to throw the box away, hoping Doris would forget he had ever gotten it, but noticed also concealed inside was a note written on a little crumpled-up piece of paper, this time in a crude sort of font. _Thanks for the soda, Harry. I figured I'd give this one back. It ain't a Dodge Dart, but it's something special. It survived a car wreck after all! - Clyde_

"Clyde," he whispered to himself, "you son of a gun."

The bottle was left unblemished, unabraded after the crash. Probably it was the only thing that came out of that car unchanged. Remarkable. Harry had a special place in mind for it.

Later that day, as Harry and Doris were heading back home from lunch, as Harry promised, to make up for how things went the last time they made lunch arrangements, he noticed Doris acting strangely. She was a little quiet at the restaurant, and now she squirmed in her seat, like she had some insatiable itch. Harry turned down the radio, thinking it was his choice of music. Still she fidgeted.

"You okay?" he said.

She fiddled with something in her jean pocket. It looked like something else entirely at the corner of Harry's eye.

"Hey, what are you doing over there?" he asked playfully.

Doris huffed a sharp breath through her nose and turned to him. "What the hell is this?" She pulled a small square piece of paper out of her pocket and stuck it in Harry's face. _Evelyn Vogel, Psychiatrist_, it said.

So that's where it went. He figured the washing machine had eaten it. "What's it look like? A business card. That nurse from the hospital left it with me."

"A business card? Sure," Doris said. "It's so clearly handwritten that it looks like she quickly scribbled it as you were heading out the door or something. I saw the way you two were looking at each other. Don't think I forgot."

"There's nothing like that going on, Doris," he promised. "What even gave you that idea anyway?"

"I'd been thinking about it since that day two weeks ago. I found that package and at first, I doubted it as many ways as I could, but I noticed the handwriting was the same as on this card I found in the washing machine. I wanted to bring it up at dinner last night. Then you got up in the middle of the night to open the package while I was still asleep. I found it open on top of the dresser but didn't look inside."

"I think you oughtta be the detective in this family, not me!" Harry chuckled. Doris flung the card at him. "It wouldn't have done any good to look in the box anyway."

"Why? Did you already get rid of the evidence?"

"No," Harry laughed. "You wanna know what it was? Reach under your seat there."

Doris shot a wary look at him. "Go on," Harry said.

She carefully stuck her hand underneath the seat and sifted it around. She quirked her eyebrows at what she uncovered.

"A bottle of Coca-Cola?" she said, holding it up to her face suspiciously.

"I would say that it's a long story but I'm sure that won't—"

"Let's hear it."

Harry reached over and gently took the bottle out of Doris' hand and fit it securely underneath her seat again.

"That very bottle was in my car when I crashed. I got it for the guy I had arrested when we stopped to get gas, to show him I could be friendly."

"Oh right, the guy who had you at gunpoint. I see."

"The guy tells me he's a diabetic so I set it aside, thinking I could use it as a weapon in case things go sour."

"Don't tell me this is your idea of keeping a weapon in the car from now on."

Harry wagged his finger and then drew the PB pistol halfway out from his waistside holster. "Besides this, I've got my .38 under my seat. Not that we need them. We're not in any danger. But if it helps you sleep at night, then there you go."

"I know we're safe. I know you wouldn't make the same stupid mistake twice, getting tangled up in some loser's problems; contracting some kind of Stockholm syndrome like you did for that Clyde guy. But why hold onto it? Why not forget that part of your life?"

Doris was usually so understanding. Never had she come off as so insensitive. It was almost rude. But she could do no wrong in Harry's eyes. Certainly it was not the other way around, which was probably for the better. Who else would align him when he started losing his stupid mind?

"Of all the glass that shattered in that car," he said, "that bottle stayed intact."

"So you're keeping it as a good luck charm. You were never superstitious."

Harry thought about that for a minute.

"You know, most people would consider it bad luck to hold onto such a thing," said Doris. "All those horrid things that happened all at once; you getting shot at, the car crash, nearly losing your eye—and what do you know?—the soda bottle survives. It's like a slap in the face. I'd take it as an insult to have that mailed to me."

Luck was never a factor in Harry's itinerary, and yet, indeed, here he was clinging to strange symbols, looking for mediation in these times of distress. The healthy thing to do would be to forget about Clyde once and for all; dump the Hector Astrada lead on somebody else at the station. He had his own shit to deal with; a mission to prepare for. He couldn't go breaking his body off to protect this one guy and his kids while a much bigger problem lie on the horizon that could not only ruin him, but also the whole city, in essence. But he was a man of his word. Just as he had promised Matthews that he wouldn't let him down, he wouldn't leave Clyde hanging out to dry either.

"I don't think it's about luck, necessarily," said Harry. "It's just something to remind me of what I survived. One day, if the going gets too rough, say we lose all our money—I blow it all at the casino—medical bills, I get deathly ill, whatever—" Harry powered through a look of sudden petrified shock on Doris' face. Unfortunate medical conditions ran in her family and this clearly struck a soft spot, but Harry was trying to prove a point. "Or, on the other end of the spectrum, maybe I get too obsessed with my work—I lose footing. I get a big promotion and become some air-headed jerk. Then I'll look on this bottle and remember that day back in 1973 and know that if I was strong enough to get through that, then I'll be strong enough to get through anything."

Harry blinked. Was this what an epiphany felt like? He always felt that when it came to doing what had to be done that failure was never an option. Whether he like it or not he would act out his duty with no questions asked. And now, with a dark spot looming over him, the hanging dread of the mission in store for him in the next week, he could brave the storm, charge into battle with new strength of heart. Or he hoped so. This could all just be him reaching for answers. Judging by Doris' bewildered looks, he guessed he must have looked and sounded insane. She had to have been there to understand. She simply wouldn't be able to grasp what he and this soda bottle had gone through. And judging by her still floored expression, she didn't intend to try anymore.

Like the soda bottle, Harry's digital watch had also come out of the crash in one piece, although, incredibly, one-hundred percent unscathed. What could he say? It was a nice watch. But unlike the bottle, the watch had never left his wrist, through good times and bad. Good old watch. The numbers on the tiny digital screen transformed from 1:59 to 2:00 as he snuck out the front door for a cigarette.

The distant scent of a barbeque wafted in the air. He heard music, but not the usual Hispanic stuff his neighbors liked to play. It sounded like Johnny Cash, if he wasn't mistaken. And—could it be?—the song was _The Ballad of Little Fauss and Big Halsy. _It was as if the very air was tailor made to his liking right then; alive with smoky, delicious smells, and breathing his favorite song. Then, the sound of a stern, sturdy engine. This smoke break couldn't get any better. Around the last house on the left, the engine grumbled—a 1970 Chevy Impala low-rider convertible. Harry dragged his cigarette and nodded his head approvingly as it cruised slowly down his street towards him. Then he saw who was driving it and nearly inhaled his entire cigarette with a gasp.

The driver parked in the street in front of Harry's house and leapt out of the car, his arms outstretched wide as he approached. He wore a pair of thick square sunglasses, a denim vest with the sleeves shorn off and parted open to reveal a bare chest underneath, and a shaggy hairdo in the shape of a mohawk running down the center of his head while the sides were shaven. He flipped up his shades and let out a boisterous laugh.

"Ah, hey, cool eye patch! And nice moustache, man!"

"Clyde?!" said Harry. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?!"

Clyde popped a cigarette of his own into his mouth and stood beside Harry in his driveway, getting immediately comfortable, leaning against Doris' station wagon.

"Oh, what, did you expect a courtesy call?" He didn't sound in the least bit hostile or sarcastic, but actually abashed, as he should. It's exactly what Harry would have expected had he expected a call at all from Clyde. He should have gotten _his_ number. "Sorry man, I've had a lot on my mind lately. I kind of left in a hurry. But listen, I've got some good news!"

Harry didn't expect him to shut up anytime soon. Before he got carried away, he had to interject.

"Clyde," he said, looking past him, towards his car, "whose car is that?"

The glossy red paintjob had been polished and waxed to absolute perfection; done professionally if ever Harry had seen such a thing. The thing sparkled. There was no way anything Clyde owned sparkled.

"Some sorry son of bitch who was takin' a little too long to run in and out of the gas station, that's who. Far as I'm concerned, people who walk that slow don't need a fast car."

Harry grabbed Clyde by the collar and yanked him off his wife's car, for one, and stuck his finger in his face like he was scolding some pesky, mangy mutt not to shit in his front yard.

"In case you forgot, I'm a cop!" Harry allowed Clyde to writhe out of his hold. The playful smile on Clyde's face didn't flicker for an instant. "And have you ever heard of surveillance cameras? With that shithole where you probably live, I'm sure they have to watch those places day and night!"

"Cameras; right. The times we live in, huh?" said Clyde, busily tapping his fingers on his forehead as if trying to regain his previous stream of thought. "Hey, so listen. Hector Astrada; I've been doin' some detective work of my own. I don't know what you've got yet but…hey, you listenin'? I caught some of his guys snoopin' around my apartment and I was able to make those fuckers squeal on his whereabouts. I found out that…Harry, you hear me?"

Harry started towards the stolen Impala to take down its plate number. He proceeded slowly towards it, his hand on the holster of his tranquilizer gun, watching for movement. He jerked his head at a crashing sound off to the left, down the street. Someone dropped their trashcan lid onto the pavement and quickly picked it back up. His head snapped to the right. A cat scampered across the road.

"Look, I was gonna ditch it, but I didn't want it to go to waste. Whaddya guys do with 'em when you find cars just left out on the side of the road, anyway? Impound 'em, right? That's like stealin' it though."

"Clyde," Harry said, slow and stern. He drew his pistol and fixed his aim on the car. He swore he saw the top of a head just barely protrude over the edge of the backseat door and then quickly sink back down. "Who else is in that car?"

"Ah, shit. Before we go into that, lemme just explain."

There was no time for anymore of Clyde's bullshit. Harry put his finger to his lips to quickly shush his belligerent visitor and then crept towards the Impala, the suppressed barrel of his gun leading the way. He took a breath. He thrust the pistol over the door. He found himself pointing at a black-haired little boy. Curled up next to him, sucking his thumb, was a younger, red-headed toddler. Harry was speechless. He simply turned to face Clyde, dumbfounded.

"Why don't you put that thing away?" said Clyde, having reclaimed his spot up against Doris' station wagon, pointing at Harry's gun with his cigarette. "My kids are little, but they're gettin' to be that age where you can't slip nothin' by them. Whatddya call it—impressionable? They're impressionable. They'll remember you stickin' a gun in their face like that. Mess 'em up for life."

Harry holstered his pistol. "Living with you, I'm sure they've seen worse," he sneered. "Is this so I don't arrest you for driving a stolen car to my house? What the hell are you even thinking?"

"Anita shortchanged me on our last score of smack, so that bitch is done. I don't give a shit if she's my neighbor; she'd better hope I never see her fat face again. You know what else? If any of Astrada's goons ever came knockin' at my door, she'd sell me and my kids out in a fuckin' heartbeat for the right price."

Obviously, Harry didn't need to ask if Clyde was insane (again), even to make him stop and look at the lunacy of the situation he'd brought about. He hoped Clyde had the decency to see his own foolishness, as he always had. But taking one look at that abnormally detached, far-gone look of his told Harry differently.

"Are you high?" was the better question. He then realized the last time he had asked this, it was to Matthews and he received a surprisingly honest 'yes' in return. He could only imagine what would come pouring out of Clyde about his current state.

"I'll tell you this: I've been up for three days straight looking for Hector Astrada."

"High on crank?"

"High on life, man!"

Harry shook his head. He shuffled indecisively by the car, unsure what he'd do now. He glanced down the street both ways, making sure nobody had followed him, or that any of his neighbors were staring too curiously for too long.

"Harry, you pulled me out of a dark place. You've shown me there is a solution to all this. You've shown me there's still something to fight for. Ever since, I've been doing everything I can to find that bastard Astrada, and I'm making headway, but I can only do so much. I need your help if I'm going to get Laura back. Will you just hear me out?"

Harry hung his head, muttering. "If my wife sees you out here…"

"It's okay. I'll be quick."

"No. We're not doing this here." Harry grabbed Clyde again by the collar and dragged him towards the Chevy. "This might be the worst decision I've ever made, but I can't see any other way around it."

"Wait! What're you doin'?" Clyde squealed.

"We're going for a ride," answered Harry. "You're driving this time."

Harry checked the backseat once more for any other surprises. The two boys turned inquisitively in their seats to watch him. He went ahead and popped the trunk with the time it was taking Clyde to meander around to the driver's side. Empty. He quickly dipped down to see underneath the vehicle and to examine the underside. Nothing unusual. It didn't satisfy him. A part of his brain that didn't care about logic, the part that suggested he keep the soda bottle, the part that agreed to seek out Hector Astrada, the part that agreed to dive headlong into Clyde's foolish gambit at all, was now disagreeing with him. Clyde started the car and Harry took one last look at the house, hoping Doris wasn't watching through the window only to then run outside and become part of this mess. On other hand, he hoped she was at the window so he could wave goodbye like he wished he could have before the last time he'd gotten in a car with Clyde.

"This isn't what you think. We just can't talk in front of my house," said Harry. "Never come to my house again. That's why I gave you my phone number."

"Right. Yeah, that was completely out of line," said Clyde with a smack of the steering wheel. "I just thought we had a thing going. An _understanding_."

Harry was too busy watching the right side mirror to scold him any further. A car pulled out of one of the little side streets branching off of the wider two-lane road on which he lived and started on the road a ways behind them.

"Go straight through the light up here and then make your first left. It'll take us on a long stretch of road, usually empty."

"Hold on, where are we going? That'll take us downtown, won't it?"

"Just do it," Harry grunted, not taking his eyes off the mirror.

Clyde sped through the yellow light and took the left as directed. They breezed along on a nice quiet road with only retirement mobile home parks peppering the right side, and on the left, a view of the ocean; here and there a private boat dock. The Miami skyline stood like a tiny replica of itself in the hazy blue distance ahead. Harry saw the follower round the bend behind them. The car stayed back and kept a leisurely speed. Harry couldn't recognize the make or model from this distance. He could tell that it wasn't a police car, or at least not a plainly-marked cruiser.

"You happen to check if you were followed here?" said Harry.

Clyde took sudden notice of Harry's eyes stuck to the mirror and he spun in his seat to get a look for himself. "No, believe me, I made sure of that. You really think I'd make that mistake again?"

"Do I really need to answer that? Somehow you don't strike me as the kinda guy who knows how to cover his tracks too well. You're sloppy. It's a wonder you ever made it out of the war alive."

Harry felt Clyde suddenly let off the gas. He turned and saw him staring dangerously back at him. The car was gradually drifting to one side and Harry had to grab hold of the wheel.

"Clyde, I'm tryin' to help you. Don't be like this right now."

Clyde swatted Harry's arm away and got the car back up to speed. Harry saw that the car trailing them did the same, not gaining more than a few hundred feet behind them. He could see now that it was a Mustang, white with a gold stripe down the side—a car that could easily pass them or drive up on their ass run them off the road. None of the other detectives at the station owned a Mustang, or at least not since Harry had been there. It was too early to tell just who it could have been. Harry would have to keep the thought on the backburner for now.

"So what have you got on Hector Astrada?" asked Harry.

"All I know for sure is that he's been trying harder than ever to come after me and my kids," said Clyde, staid in his tone, his whimsy extinguished. He would go back to being himself soon enough, Harry guessed. He couldn't go on being moody with a haircut like that. "Three guys came after me where I live but I was just waitin' for those cocksuckers to try to pull somethin' like that. I was ready. One of 'em I nabbed and beat to a pulp until he pissed himself. He was a little tough to get to talk but once he saw what happened to his boys he loosened right up."

"Don't tell me," said Harry. He loved it when his perpetrators inadvertently admitted their crimes when he had them in a corner in the interrogation room. Under normal circumstances, what Clyde said next would be all Harry needed to lead to a conviction.

"That's right," said Clyde. "Let's just say those guys weren't about to walk outta there alive. And they sure as hell didn't!"

"You killed them?"

"I'd say it qualifies as self-defense, wouldn't you? Shit, that's the embodiment of self-defense. If I woulda let those guys go, even if I bashed in all their teeth, ripped out their tongues, and dug out their eyeballs for comin' after me and my boys, I'd still be a dead man once their boss found out old Clyde's gotta bone to pick."

"Can't you call the police? Just me alone won't be enough."

Clyde plucked two cigarettes out of his denim vest pocket and offered one to Harry. "Sure you are," he said. "There's this good-guy-ness about you that no other cop has. Believe me, I've had my fair share of run-ins with the cops. With you, it's more than just a job. You wouldn'ta agreed to help me, to have put up with me for this long, if that weren't the case. You may not look like half the stand-up guy that you are from the outside, but I know a man of strength and courage when I see one." Harry accepted the cigarette, not taking his skeptical eyes off Clyde. "You gotta lotta heart, and a good head on your shoulders. I'd be proud to have fought alongside someone like you in 'Nam, and I'm not proud of anything. I can tell you care about what happens to these boys of mine. You know how badly they need their mother. She's all they have."

"Don't you think it's a better idea to get outta Dodge while you still can? The police—I will look for Laura while you take your kids and get as far away from Miami as you can. You aren't incapable of looking after your own kids. You're a good man too; maybe a bit of a wild card, but you're able to see what's important."

Clyde turned in his seat and smiled at his two sons, sitting complacent and quiet in the backseat. At least he had the sense to buckle them in. They really needed car seats. "The mistakes I've made are irreversible," he said. "As long as they're with me, they're in danger. Without their mother, I don't want to think what'll happen to them in the future. They need their mother and you're the only one who can bring her back to them. Have you even started looking for her?"

"I haven't been able to go back to the station. I don't know if I told you already, but I'm on paid leave. There's a big operation in the works that I can't talk about and they've given me the last couple of weeks to prepare for it."

"That doesn't sound like something that'd stop you. Wait, lemme guess; the wife's gotcha tied up. Hey, I get it man."

"I'm under direct orders not to set foot on the premises of my precinct, all right? I can't access the database just yet. Now why don't we get back on track and you tell me what you killed three men to find out?" said Harry. "Man, I'm gonna have a wonderful time explaining to my boss how I came upon that information."

Clyde's lips formed into a snicker over his cigarette. Harry's distress seemed to amuse him, like a snot-nosed, sadistic older brother who got a kick out of watching him struggle. But as Harry predicted, that smile of his returned. He envied that ability to shrug off so dire a dilemma. Life would be so simple.

"Apparently Laura isn't the only one Astrada wants to make an example out of. They like to take their victims to the docks around the Port of Miami and chop 'em in pieces. Leave 'em for you guys to find. The guy said Astrada doesn't order a kill on anyone who hasn't severely crossed him. But that's just what he says."

"Laura hasn't done anything to cross them, right? You think there's a chance she could still be alive?"

"Unless that guy was yankin' my chain. Astrada is after me. He's using her as bait in hopes I'll go snoopin' around or go to the police so he can really do me in. He wants his money but he doesn't understand that I want my Laura even more."

"So you've found they take their victims to the shipping yards to kill them. Like you guessed, the homicide department is well aware of that already."

"Right, so if they use the shipping yards time and time again without getting caught, that must mean they know the ins and outs of that place. They know it well enough to judge what time to go there and what spot to take their victims so they don't get caught."

"They're big time drug-runners, if they're anything like the men we've been investigating. Same M.O.s. Sorry to say, but if your trail leads to those shipping yards it doesn't look too good for Laura."

"Hold on. I'm just getting to the good part," said Clyde with a grin. "Okay, if they're so familiar with the shipping yards, it's because they're shipping in drugs through the port."

"Yes, we already agreed on that. You think they're Cubans right? Drugs are smuggled in from Cuba through the Port of Miami all the time. What's that got to do with Laura's whereabouts?"

"I think there're others like Laura; people who've been kidnapped and set on a chopping block, facing the same fate as every other victim of the cartel unless their families pay up. And you know what else? I think these people are being shipped off to the same place the drugs are coming from."

"You've already proposed that and I'll tell you what; that's highly unlikely. You know how hard it is to smuggled people around? It's a lot harder than drugs, I can assure you."

"Hang on, here's the kicker—and I knocked that douchebag so silly that he was laughing in my face as he told me this—there's a guy who logs the comings and goings of their supply on audio tape. This guy knew I wasn't talkin' about drugs, so why would he tell me that? I'm telling you, drugs come in, people go out. I'm sure they aren't sweating smuggling a handful of people when they just got done carting in tons upon tons of cocaine. They're both going to the same place. They've gotta be."

"We'd find out if we knew what was on those tapes. Any idea where they'd keep them?"

"As you'd guess, the guy continued to laugh when I asked him the same thing. I had to get pretty creative with a box cutter to get that smile off his face. Eventually he told me that I'd never dream of gettin' my hands on those tapes because they'd been seized by police. He probably thought he was bein' real loyal, thinkin' I was just another schmuck like him, and he was spewin' me some useless shit in hopes I'd give up. Little did that bitch know…" Clyde patted Harry on the shoulder. "I know the police."

"Clyde, even if that guy wasn't pulling your leg, which we can't find out because he's dead, correct?"

"Damn straight." Clyde answered. Harry rolled his eyes.

"Then those tapes could have been seized by a different department. And if that's the case, there's really nothing I can do about it. It'd be impossible to get any kind of search warrants to go after Astrada with. And that most likely is the case because I haven't heard anything about this until I met you. If my department had those tapes logged into evidence, I'd know."

"You're on leave or vacation or whatever, aren't you? You can't know everything that's going on in that place, just like how you keep stuff from them," Clyde said, gesturing between him and Harry. "Everybody has their own agenda. Everybody has secrets."

Harry ruminated on that, quietly puffing his cigarette. He pointed to a street coming up on the right side and told Clyde to take it. He set his sights again on the driver behind them. The Mustang retained its distance. Its turn signal flipped on as Clyde made the right.

"Just," said Clyde, "please see what you can do about finding those tapes."

Harry didn't want to think about how that lead would pan out; what it would lead to down the line. As Clyde said, people have their own agendas, their own secrets, their own self-interest to look after first. Clyde was making it tough for Harry to remember his own. Clyde bringing his two kids along had to be some kind of ploy to get Harry's cooperation. They were being good though. Harry turned to check on them, assuming such a thought hadn't even crossed Clyde's mind, and also to see if he could get a better look at their pursuer as he rounded the corner. But the Mustang drifted by, slowing for probably the next turn or the next after that. So they weren't being followed by a complete imbecile; all the more reason for Harry to keep his eyes peeled.

"OOOWWWWW!" A shrieking cry cut sheer over the grumbling of the Impala's engine. "Biney's hurting me!"

Harry spun to address the sudden clamor. Again, he used to the opportunity to check his 6:00. All clear. Clyde didn't budge.

"Brian, be nice to your brother," said the father of two, talking into the rear-view mirror.

The red-haired boy squirmed as far as the seatbelt would allow away from his brother, pouting and nursing a spot on his chubby arm with his tiny hands. The dark-haired boy turned a playful look away from his brother, and then his look became venomous, brooding, as it met Harry's eyes. And Harry could see something tangible in this one's gaze—off-putting, but there was something deep and resounding behind that childlike innocence. Something had set in and began to sprout in that fallow soil. It was like nothing he'd ever seen in a child. He couldn't tell so much about the other boy.

Harry sat back in his seat, enjoying the wind and the indistinct, quiet music on the radio for no longer than a minute, before another scream of a little boy blasted his eardrum.

"OOOOOOWWWWWWWW!"

Clyde puffed his cigarette, exhaling the smoke with a chuckle. Harry swiveled quicker than he thought possible of his reflexes. Brian was antagonizing his brother with a toy of some kind.

"Hey, knock it off, will ya?" said Harry as he reached back and separated the two. When he did, he saw that the black-haired boy wielded a knife. Harry impulsively snatched it out of the child's hand, not fretting a cut on his finger that could come out of so swift an action. He could scold the boy later. Despite the creepy look on Brian's face, as far as Harry was concerned he wasn't to blame anyway. He checked the younger sibling and saw no cuts on him, though he was shriveled and griping.

"What the hell are your kids playin' around with a knife for?"

"Heh, looks real, don't it? It's a gag." Clyde pressed his finger on the tip and the blade retracted into the handle and sprung back out as he let off. "It's spring-loaded. Neat toy, huh?"

Harry stared at him, mouth agape, in disbelief. He shoved the thing in the glove box, which he found to have contained a real knife and a gun; the same snubnose revolver Clyde had put to his head. He couldn't forget the look of it. His prints were all over it. What did it matter? He had already stepped in it too deep some time ago to worry about something like that.

"I want ma-ma back!" Brian wailed.

They drew up to a four-way stop sign. Clyde dragged long at his cigarette. Harry forgot all about his, which was left burning in the ashtray.

"The policeman says you might not see ma-ma again," Clyde said, a cloud of smoke leaving his lips.

"Don't tell them that," Harry whispered. He turned again to face the boys. Both stared wide-eyed back at him. "Your ma-ma will be back soon. We don't know where she went, but we'll find her."

Both boys leaned close to each other and got quiet. The simple statement held just enough sincerity to give some hope to their young hearts.

"Where are _we_ going?" asked the dark-haired boy.

"Somewhere safe." Harry assured.

"With ma-ma?" asked the other boy, in a small, excited voice.

Harry put forth the defense of a smile, to protect these two young'uns from seeing the ugly truth—that it might not ever be in their future to see their mother again. My, how that stung. Harry had next to no relationship with his parents. He left home as soon as he saved enough pocket change to eat on his own for a day and went from there. He kept it bottled down before; he didn't like his personal dilemmas to ever leak into his duties, and much less did he like thinking about them. This case, with Clyde and his boys, he realized had become a mix of those two worlds; both sides bleeding into one another. The deeper he delved into the matter, as the days went on, the fiercer it ripped at him, as those two colliding worlds battered against the threshold on which he stood. As the ferocious sea ripped into the craggy shore that was Harry, there was no other choice for him but to become tougher rock.

"No, not with ma-ma," said Harry. "Somewhere that the good guys can watch over you so the bad guys can't get you."

"Harry, where is it that you think we're going?" said Clyde, now putting out his cigarette.

Harry glanced left and right as they lingered at the intersection, ignoring the question. No sign of the Mustang. He instructed Clyde to drive straight, down a short street with a little convenient store tucked off to the right side and the entrance to an apartment complex on the left.

"Pull into that little corner store over there," Harry ordered. He saw a car pull out of a side street in the mirror. "Hurry!"

Clyde screeched the tires getting through the stop sign. He drifted smoothly into the parking lot of the convenient store.

"Get between those two trucks over there. You see 'em? Keep out of view."

Clyde did so and cut the engine.

"I think we're good. That didn't look like the same car as before. It was a different color and everything."

"Just hold on," Harry instructed, watching the mirror unblinkingly.

"Lemme run in and get us a soda real quick. Like you did for me." Harry stayed absolutely still, not even risking a breath. "Whaddya say, boys, you want a soda?"

"Yeah, soda!" both of the boys squeaked.

Harry reached over with his good arm to press Clyde back into the seat. He ignored the boys' shared look of being curious, frightened, and disappointed all at once as he was turned, facing them. The street stayed empty for a solid minute and a half. A gray minivan pulled into the parking lot and out of sight.

"You need to chill. We lost them, all right?" said Clyde with a hint of laughter. "Now you want a soda or what?"

"Clyde," said Harry, now feeling his heartrate return to normal, "why did you send that package to my house? Do you know how weirded-out that made my wife when I was trying to explain that to her?"

"Huh?" said Clyde. "I didn't mail you anything." He took off his seatbelt but Harry kept his firm hold.

"You didn't send me a package with a soda bottle that came from my car after we got in that wreck?"

Clyde shook his head. "No. I mean—funny you mention it—a coupla' officers came into my room the day after you left the hospital and told me they were letting me go, but they had confiscated everything from the car—my gun, my knife, whatever else was in it. I thought you put them on to me; told them to look the other way, or whatever. Then later that day this fine-looking blonde nurse comes into my room with a damn soda bottle. With this British accent she tells me it was all that was recovered from the wreck and that she had taken it upon herself to get it back to me. 'Course, I'm thinkin' 'what the hell am I gonna do with this?' Then I get to watchin' TV and I see the same stupid truck commercial that came on when you walked in the day before. Next thing I know, I'm scribbling a note about how I hope it finds you or some sappy shit like that. I thought it was dumb so I tossed the note in the wastebasket before I fell asleep. When I woke up, the bottle was gone. So you got it? How?"

"Don't know. There wasn't a return address on it. Whoever sent it didn't want to be found out, but also knew that it'd mean something for me to have it, that it'd be special to me. Even if you didn't send it, I just thought I'd say thanks."

Clyde swung his head, utterly bowled over. "That is the darndest thing," he said, as Clyde slipped free and opened his car door. Harry stared blankly at one spot on the mirror in wonderment, until he was struck with alarm at a sight that he nearly overlooked in his glazed-over vacancy. The white Mustang crept into the parking lot and parked on opposite side. Stepping out of the Mustang, casting his squinted blue-eyed leer side to side, scanning the premises, his hands at his hips, was none other than Stan Liddy. Harry dove as low as he could for the floorboard and hissed for Clyde to get back in the car. Clyde ducked down, but enough to still watch his mirror.

"Who the fuck is that? No Cuban by the looks of 'im."

While Harry didn't doubt that an enemy of the caliber that Hector Astrada was turning out to be would have emissaries of all creeds and colors, he knew Stan Liddy as a man who always worked better alone.

"He's another detective," Harry answered. "Just keep low. He knows your face too."

"What? How?"

"He's been on to you since before you and I ever met. Apparently he hasn't lost interest."

"Well he has for now," said Clyde, now rising in his seat, his eyes on the rear-view. "He just got back in his car and left."

Harry carefully got a look for himself. No Mustang in sight.

"Soda! Soda!" the kids chanted.

"No time for a soda. We need to hurry," said Harry.

Harry directed Clyde to drive across the street, into the apartment complex, praying to God Liddy hadn't been lying in wait a block up the street. They drove along a winding, shady lane with rows and rows of small residences tightly compacted on either side. Harry marked the numbers on the buildings carefully as Clyde cruised through.

"Ah, here it is. Pull in here," he said. Clyde beamed at him skeptically.

"What's this? Plan B? The house of a cop friend who won't rat you out?"

"She's not a cop but she is a friend." And another innocent soul whose life would be better off without what Harry was about to arrive at her doorstep with. "Her name's Camilla. Okay boys? Can you say Camilla?" Harry turned to the boys in the back. They didn't attempt it; they only stared on, like usual. "Well she'll take good care of you while me and your daddy go for a ride."

"What the hell, Harry?"

"Don't worry," Harry said, still speaking to the boys, "your daddy will be back."

Clyde had a relieved but no less audacious look. A woman stepped out of the apartment, trying to glean at who these visitors of hers were. Harry stepped out of the car and asked Clyde to do the same. Clyde rounded his two boys up and they all approached the apartment door. Had this been a normal visit, Harry would be all smiles, and alone or with Doris, eager to shoot the breeze over a causal meal. But now, Harry imagined he must have looked like some inflection of the grim man he had started to feel like; this weight bearing down on him; haggard, scarred, misshapen. He realized this was Camilla's first look at him in well over a month.

"Good lord, Harry. What'd you do to your eye?" she said. She hardly glanced at Clyde or the two boys. She was a portly woman, like Clyde's neighbor, only without any dependence on drugs—save for nicotine, but Harry figured that wasn't anything new for the kids—and certainly no relation with any dangerous criminals.

"Looks like they'll be eating well," Clyde murmured to Harry, who returned the comment with a light elbow jab to hush him.

"Hey Camilla, I'm really sorry about this but I'm in a serious jam. I'll explain everything later." Harry had Clyde hand over the two boys, which he did compliantly to his surprise.

"Should I even ask?" said Camilla with a perplexed smirk.

"You could but I wouldn't have time to explain. We'll be back for them before you know it."

Camilla hoisted the boys up into her arms. It was a spitting image of when Harry first met the two youngsters when Clyde's neighbor had come to the hospital with them. Rather than warming his heart, however, it hardened the lead around it, and sunk it deeper into cold unease. Poor boys. They needed a real home. They needed their real mother.

"They're adorable," she said. "What are their names?"

Clyde kept his perplexed brow fixed on her but didn't answer. Harry, with his feet already starting back towards the car, flustered, answered: "You know, I can't remember." He smacked his hands on his pant pockets as was natural when he was at an immediate loss, like when he was looking for his cigarettes.

"Brian and—uh, something with a 'D'; Dennis, Derick…. We won't be gone long enough for it to matter."

"I guess I'll just tell my husband you rescued them from a burning building or something and had to rush back to save the others." A joke, but not all that far from the truth. "No, don't worry; you can trust me with your secrets, as always."

Harry winced, as if that last part glanced him a bit. "I'm sorry about this. Just hang tight. We'll be right back."

He rushed back to the Impala. Clyde shuffled behind at a faltering pace. "Now what?" Clyde asked, seeming careful about getting back into the car.

Harry wasn't sure what he was going to do with Clyde now. The important thing was that the kids were in good hands for the moment and would continue to be for as long as it took Harry to sort out the rest of this predicament. Would he take Clyde to the station now that he didn't have to worry about him doing something brash with his kids in the car? Camilla would know what to do with the kids better than he would. She was the records clerk at the station and a trusted friend. Harry had once asked her to make sure the files on one of his more questionable confidential informants he had picked up one evening never saw the light of day. So far it hadn't. He didn't know why she was so loyal to him, or why he was so confident in trusting her with sensitive information that could ruin him, but their relationship had always been this way—what was the risk in one more secret? And then there was Clyde. With his goofy grin and that obnoxious haircut—he didn't belong in jail, he belonged in a looney bin.

"We're gonna go see my lieutenant," Harry confessed.

The idea had been at the forefront of his plan the whole time, but as a last-ditch alternative to taking him in; booking him, doing it all on the up-and-up. And yet, Harry had found himself at the tricky spot in his life where doing things justly came with the most repercussion. The three lives, maybe four if Laura was still breathing somewhere, he had taken under his wing were there to stay as long as he himself still drew breath. To forfeit them to another entity, to give up that control, would render as crippling a blow as could be for a man with no ego. The caverns and hollow places in him would fill twice over with guilt, which his body had grown less and less tolerant of, and yet those passages in which it flowed multiplied in him ever more.

Clyde's eyes flashed like powder-pans. "I shoulda known. You just wanted to dump my kids off so you could properly dispose of me."

"No, that's quite the opposite of what I'm doing here, Clyde. The lieutenant is a close friend of mine. If I can get a hold of him, we can meet with him in private somewhere. That's how he does things: privately, furtively. If this case is as big as it's panning out to be, he'll work with you on it, and he'll keep it low-profile. That means you won't be booked and, thus, you won't see jail time. It's the only way I can help you without you getting thrown in jail and your kids going into child protective services. If Laura is ever found, alive or dead, those boys would probably never learn of it so as to keep them protected from their drug-abusing parents that got them into foster care in the first place. Does that make sense?"

Clyde hung his head low, his hand hesitating over the keys in the ignition, unconvinced.

"My lieutenant will know about those tapes you mentioned, regardless of what department has them. And if he doesn't, he can find them. Besides that, he already knows about you. He set you up with a decoy in the hospital as protection, after the accident. Of course, I'm sure he didn't mean for you to be let go. That must be why Liddy—the guy in the Mustang—is tailing us."

"Well, I was released from the hospital. I didn't fight my way out or nothin' like that. The cops picked me up by the armpits and threw me out, basically. Told me to get lost. It sounds like there's something your lieutenant knows that you don't."

"Well, either way," said Harry, his eyes on the right side mirror. "Detective Stan Liddy is hot on our trail, and by the looks of it, closing in."

Harry saw the Mustang sidling in along the winding lane of the apartment complex. He couldn't tell if Liddy had spotted them yet, but wasn't going to wait to find out.

"Clyde, you might not trust me right now, but if you don't wanna go to jail, you'd better step on it, and quick."

Clyde marked the Mustang in the rear view and swallowed hard. He took the Impala to its top speed in a matter of seconds, navigating the narrow curves, dodging the occasional house cat that darted by and the unassuming folks out walking their dogs in the mid-afternoon sunshine. Harry dreaded to take another look in the mirror. The Mustang took the bends left in their wake with speed. Stan Liddy had spotted them and was gaining on them.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**La Carretera Bajo el Reloj**

The tires of Clyde's stolen Impala screeched and smoked as he careened the winding lane leading around and back out of the complex. Stan Liddy followed. Clyde tested the limits of the Chevrolet engine, smashing the pedal to the floor as he and Harry blew through the previous four-way stop sign and made for the open road. This car of theirs was no bucket of bolts; no crusty, barnacled sea-wagon as one might think more suitable of the two salty sailors aboard, but it was no Mustang either. Harry shouted over the screaming engine for Clyde to head downtown and to take the maze of residential roads to their right all the way there. Anything to throw Liddy, anything to keep Harry from being discovered. But it was probably already too late for that.

Clyde skidded the car around a sharp, ninety degree turn, and floored the pedal down the quiet neighborhood road. Harry risked popping his head up high enough to peek at the mirror. Liddy was right behind. He could see his snarling face in the windshield. Clyde made each available turn, seemingly going either right or left at random. Stan Liddy lost no ground.

"This guy won't quit," Clyde grunted.

"Just head downtown, whatever you do," said Harry. "We should be able to lose him in that kind of traffic. Then we can disappear into one of those shopping malls or something."

"Nah, we'd stick out like a coupla sore thumbs. I've gotta better place in mind."

Harry was hardly in the position to question any ideas at this point, even those born from Clyde's warped imagination.

"There's this place on the south side of town where I used to go to score dope; an abandoned construction site. They were making it into a strip mall but now it's just these two rows of empty buildings. Looming over them is this big old clock tower. Looks like a little ghost town. You might have heard of it."

"_La Carretera Bajo el Reloj_," said Harry. He hadn't ever been there, but he had heard plenty about it from his colleagues. "Over by Glenvar Heights; sure I know that place. And we aren't going there."

"So you should know a cop wouldn't last a minute if he was caught driving through there," said Clyde, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder at the car behind them.

"I'm a cop too. Do I look like I've gotta death wish?" said Harry. He had been given the pleasure of experiencing some of Miami's roughest neighborhoods; places only his line of work could bring a sane man to. But just from the whispers he had heard when he had first got on the force about the "road under the clock" was enough to keep him at bay. He never knew if the thugs lording over that stretch of ghost town were connected to Jimenez or Hector Astrada. It made no difference. Whatever illicit operation was being run there, it must have been big to have scared every cop in Miami away, including him, for so long.

"I can't rightly tell just by lookin' at you. Not the way you are now," Clyde answered. "You ain't the same man I met in front of that bar two weeks ago. You don't look the same, anyway. You're startin' to look like weathered rock; like you've been chewed up and spit back out; like someone who's seen some shit." He grinned. "Someone like me."

"Oh gimme a break," Harry said. "If by 'look like you' you mean I look like some scuzzy rat lookin' to pick up his next hit of crank, then yeah, I agree; I don't look all that handsome."

"Good. It's decided then."

"I don't think so." Harry checked that his gun was still holstered at his side; his last bargaining chip when words would fail him.

"It's the first place I went when I got outta jail. The place ain't as bad as it used to be."

"Call me crazy, but that just doesn't quite sell me."

"Whatever. You'll thank me later."

That might be the case, so long as Harry wouldn't be forced to fire a tranquilizer round into either his coworker, Liddy, or his depraved and yet deprived acquaintance, Clyde. With his gun, he could handle whatever dangers he might encounter treading this road, which, with Clyde, grew ever the more perilous.

The Impala powered full speed out onto an empty county road. The rumbling shapes of the many streetlamps, little storefronts, and business parks whizzed by at their left; graffiti-ridden, sand-colored stucco shacks to the right. Stan Liddy had no trouble drawing his Mustang up to Clyde's bumper. Harry's hand was firm around the PB pistol. It was tempting to use it, but at these speeds, an unconscious man behind the wheel was nothing anybody needed.

Clyde slammed over a curb, slipping into one of these shabby side streets. He gunned the car up and over a series of train tracks and scorched down a dirt road behind some houses. Harry could feel the floor rattling under his feet as the engine fought for speed, as the tires battled the rugged, lumpy terrain. At this point, Harry saw little good coming out of where this was all headed and having Liddy spot him in the car with Clyde seemed the least of his burdens at the moment. He saw the grill of the Mustang plowing through the dust left in the Impala's wake, hot on their tail. Over the noise of the thundering engines and the unforgiving road against the wheels, Harry heard also the sharp _ding_ and _thwack _of the gravel Clyde was kicking up battering Liddy's windshield. The Mustang soon backed off just enough for Clyde to swing the next turn comfortably. Ahead now, at the end of a straight, dusty alleyway, stood a tall tower fixed with a huge clock face. Detective Liddy had turned down the lane after them just as they blasted out the end of the alleyway. Clyde quickly veered the car to park in between the first two buildings of the wide, dusty lot overlooked by the clock tower. Without a word to each other, Harry and Clyde ditched the car and scrambled for cover before the Mustang came barreling into the abandoned lot.

They found themselves scraping uselessly at the sheer, bare walls of two tall buildings, built of little more than plain cinderblock; nothing to climb, nowhere to enter. There were piles of debris strewn up and down the narrow way: heaps of broken wood, concrete, and twisted piping. Harry knew a thing or two about hiding, about keeping out of and evading the sight of an enemy so that he may plot out an attack plan from the shadows, in safety. But there was nowhere to hide. Liddy would pull into this same alleyway any second. Harry's pulse beat against his temples. He hunkered down low and drew his weapon with his only useable hand, like the last defensive instinct of a cornered dog, drawing his useless, nubby fangs.

"Hey, what're you doin'?" Clyde's voice sounded far away, or stifled, like he was trying to whisper. Harry turned and saw him beckoning at the other end of the narrow passage. "I found a way to get into this building. Around the front here."

But Harry knew what was really out there. He could feel it in his gut. He'd seen photographs of the grizzly crime scenes that had brought such notoriety to this place. He saw a wider, dusty road out by where Clyde was, and beyond was a long row of more abandoned, unfinished shells of buildings. Harry stammered backwards slowly as the grumbling of the Mustang engine filled the alleyway.

"Hurry, man!" Clyde yelped.

Harry had no other way to go. He turned and sprinted out to the central road and followed Clyde through a doorway leading into a dark room; the dusty, damp innards of one of the incomplete buildings. It got quieter. The air was closer. Harry tried to steady his breath as he groped along the walls in the dark. He imagined strange shapes in the unseen corners, down on this first floor where the sunlight didn't penetrate. In his covered eye he would often see strange images, such as one might against shut eyelids as he lied down to sleep. But those nightmarish apparitions would dissipate in the light of waking life. Now they danced freely in the darkness, those eyelid phantoms, where they could live on in the unabridged gloom. He rubbed both of his eyes and staggered on. This place was nothing like the stiff, cold emptiness he always thought of when he saw the crime scene photos—the insides of those ghostly old structures. It was bleak, sure, but the air was ripe and very thick, very alive with the stench of its inhabitants; the choking reek of rat feces, and the rotting soils of any other creature who had ever stumbled into this concrete catacomb. The idling Mustang engine shook the walls. Harry heard footsteps all around but knew they could only be Clyde's. He threw his hands around in search of him, gasping and choking.

"Get a grip!" Clyde said, sheer yet hushed, closer at hand than Harry thought. "There's a ladder over here. Think you can climb?"

Harry slowly tried lifting his left elbow over his head. His muffled griping was answer enough.

"Then we'll have to go deeper," said Clyde. "We can still scope the surroundings outside from this ground floor, if I recall. Back in the day, we'd have to look out for cops all the time. Sometimes the cops would watch the second floor and wait for someone to pop out before they charged in to bust us, so we found a way to watch the entrance into the lot from ground level. It's a straight shot across. Try to keep close."

Harry swatted at a shadow that flew by his head. He pointed his gun at something that brushed against his arm. He stood frozen, watching the squiggly forms move in the dark. He could feel that Clyde was near, but couldn't see him. He couldn't see anything.

"Here," Clyde huffed, "I know whatcha need."

There was sudden flash of light in his palm, then another. The light became steady with the dim, red glow of a cigarette hanging now from his lips. He gave one to Harry and he hungrily accepted it. Harry saw on Clyde an eager grin biting his cigarette. Then, in the low light, Harry saw Clyde pull a strip of cloth from his vest pocket and tie it around his head like a bandana.

"Now get a move on, soldier," he said, tugging at Harry's T-shirt.

"Clyde," said Harry, feeling the fuzziness of his head already begin to melt away. "This is no time to be messin' around. What are you thinkin' lighting that cigarette? We're gonna get seen. And what's up with the headband? You act like you're damn fourteen years old."

Clyde just grinned more mischievously and wrenched hard on Harry's shirt to get him to follow. Harry would play along, but how much longer could he keep this up before Clyde's fun and games put Harry in the hospital again, or worse, put somebody else in the hospital?

Harry followed the bobbing red glow of Clyde's cigarette to the other side of the building. Clyde stopped and quietly flipped a metal grate up out of the floor. He and Harry crawled through, into a small den with windows to the outside. Harry kept his pistol fixed on the metal grate as he carefully set it back over the hole.

"Hey, come get a look at this," Clyde whispered. "This place has changed since I'd last been here. Doesn't look like the city's done much to the place. The current residents have done most of this renovating, I'll wager."

Harry ventured close to the window. He saw a clear view of the street outside: a central unpaved avenue between two rows of unfinished buildings that spanned in either direction for a block, where the road halted at a dead end on one side and small plaza with a clock tower at the other end. He could tell it was designed to be a shopping center; a slice of the sprawling metropolis to bring life to the city outskirts. Anyone with half a brain would have picked a different neighborhood for so enthusiastic a project. Nearer to the window, in a wider dustier gulley than the one they had come in by, was sort of a walled-in alcove. There, a cloud of recently kicked-up dirt caught Harry's eye. Liddy couldn't have been quick enough to round the whole building yet, and by the look of it, the area was closed off to where he couldn't reach it from the back of the building anyway. Odd, but Harry thought little of it. He noticed heaps of trash laying in this dirt field that were fashioned like rows of advancing bulwark.

"It looks like the Wild West," Harry remarked.

"Ain't much different," said Clyde. "Drug dealers have been takin' their business here for years. Although you cops have been crackin' down on this place lately, so I doubt it gets used much anymore. Still, I'd think the legend is enough to keep a lone wolf like this guy Liddy away from here."

"You've got it backwards. The one cop brave, or stupid, enough to come here is Liddy," said Harry. "We better hope this is a damn good hiding spot. Doesn't seem like he'd be giving up any time soon, especially if he knows I'm helping you get away. That guy's had it out for me since I first started on the force."

Clyde peeked around the corner of the window, looking back towards the entrance to the lot. He quickly withdrew his head with a gasp and tackled Harry to the dirt. There were many noises all at once; faint like footsteps coming from all directions outside of the bunker. Still there was the droning of the engine out in the alleyway. There was a light breeze in the hollows up above. Somewhere outside, a crow cawed. Some of the steps sounded quiet and faint, maybe imagined, but there was definitely somebody walking just outside the window. Harry held his breath. His heartbeat pumped hard in his ear drums. The footstep halted briefly before continuing their slow stride out to the central street. Harry could feel that Clyde had gotten up to take another look.

"Good," Clyde whispered. "It's only him."

Harry raised himself to see just an inch over the verge. A man wearing a long duster and boots strolled out into the main avenue. In each hand glinted two silver revolvers. _Liddy?_ Harry thought. _He wasn't wearing that getup when I saw him at that convenience store._

"Come on out, Clyde! I know you're here!" The echo of his voice sent a flock of crows aflutter. That man was so tenacious in his cause, sauntering so snidely and yet with great reverence, as though he knew his duties would one day call him here, to the hallowed road under the clock.

Liddy paced back and forth, spinning his revolvers by his waist, scanning the empty frameworks around him with that blue-eyed squint of his. Clyde and Harry squatted low, though Liddy had wandered well out of range of eyeshot, lest he knew already where to look. Harry could simply shoot a tranquilizer round into Liddy before it was too late. No, there had to be another way out of this. Even if it were his last and only option, he was a horrible shot with his left eye.

"Show yourself, coward!" Liddy shouted, this time his rich clear voice filled every cavern and hollow place of the construction site. So bold was he to essay the gloom and all that lurked therein to reveal itself. If there was one thing these three men shared to any degree, it was foolish bravery. "A soldier like you don't run and hide!"

Clyde had not the look of a cornered or hunted animal, as Harry might still have looked, but a rambunctious and ravenous one, as always. That silly bandana of his only added to his childlike effervescence. He kneaded his clenched fists. He licked his lips with poised eagerness. How, Harry wondered, could so voracious and incantation overcome this man who had previously sunk so deep into despair? He had admitted nearly taking his own life shortly before meeting Harry. Harry could scarcely believe such a thought could ever enter the mind of this man beside him now. Yet he wondered: what drove him up from such a pit? Not happiness—not happiness as it is known to the regular man; ever fleeting, ever unattainable. No, this spell had fully enveloped him, whatever it was.

Then Clyde shuddered at a noise. Harry quickly put eyes back on Liddy and saw he had quit spinning his two pistols and stood utterly still, looking towards the clock tower in horror. Several men had crawled out of the woodwork of the surrounding buildings, snickering as they approached the lone detective.

"What do we have here?" growled the man leading the pack. His men were all of a swarthy, grungy sort; the sort that one should expect to issue from the darkest, forgotten recesses of the urban outskirts. They slinked and cackled like hyenas. But the leading man went with a pompous swagger. There was a deranged light in his eye, and a toothy, maniacal grin that could put Liddy's to shame.

"You lost, _amigo_? I know you ain't a cop—your kind know better. Besides, no cop has any business carrying around such a beautiful gun, much less one for each of his grimy hands."

The thugs drew a circle around Liddy. The detective held his ground.

"I'm lookin' for a wanted man. Unless you wanna tell me where he's hiding, I suggest you mind your own damn business, or you might wind up findin' out all you need to know about these here six-shooters."

Liddy cast his steely stare at each man. Harry observed that the brigands had weapons of their own tucked into their ragged clothes. Harry fumbled with his gun, frustrated. He couldn't shoot all these guys even if he were able. He didn't even have enough ammunition. He heard Clyde shifting his feet in the dirt.

"Now's our chance to book it," he said.

Harry watched in terror as the men closed in around his fellow detective with their guns now drawn on him. They took turns whipping him with the butts of their pistols on his blindside. Each way he turned, he'd be struck again on the back until he was beaten into submission. The men dragged him through the sand over near where Harry and Clyde were hidden; into the closed-in alcove Harry had noted earlier. The leader picked up the two revolvers off the ground, cackling, gazing lustfully on them as if they were now his beloved trophies. Harry wondered what else this man had collected from the limp bodies of his fellow officers. He felt his ears burn; his teeth grit. He rocked back and forth, feeling his every fiber swell with fury.

"I'm can't let these motherfuckers do him like they did the rest," Harry snarled. "You stay here, Clyde."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You aren't gonna try and save him, are you?! This is the best possible thing we could have hoped for in coming here! What if that were you and he were in your place? Would he rush over, risk his skin, to save you?"

The men slogged Liddy's body to the far end of the alcove and cast him aside, like another piece of the junk that was littered everywhere. Some of them danced around him, tormenting his unresponsive body, while the others got busy turning his pockets inside out.

"Ah, lookee here. Miami Metro." One of them tossed the detective's badge over to the leader. "We haven't gotten one of them yet, have we?"

Harry grimaced, feeling he might lose composure soon; do something reckless.

"Come on," Clyde begged. "This is suicide."

Harry lifted his good arm up, readying to hop through the window and make the desperate dash.

"Harry, if you do this, I'm not staying."

"Good. I don't need you anyway. Take this as your golden opportunity to run."

"Listen to me, Harry!" Clyde yanked him down off the window, causing Harry to land with his hip on top of his pistol. He frothed as he tried to hold in a howl of pain, as Clyde held him down whilst he kicked and squirmed. In his rage, he dug out the pistol from under him and pointed it at Clyde's forehead. Clyde only smiled.

"I know what it's like, Harry. I know how it feels to watch someone on your team get picked and prodded at by the enemy. It stings, but it's your ass or his."

Harry shook his head, unsatisfied; the barrel of his gun still aimed at Clyde's head.

"Think about your family. Thinking of mine is what's gotten me this far. In fact, you're the one who made me see that; that there's still something for me to fight for. Think of your wife. I've been thinkin' about Laura, about Dickie and Brian, about what it'd mean for them to see their mama again. If it weren't for them, I'd be dead. If it weren't for you, I'd be dead."

"Doris would understand that I'm doing my job," said Harry, lowering the gun. "She knows it's dangerous, but she also knows I can watch over my own ass. This is my job, and if it ends badly, then she'd know that above all I was trying to save an innocent life."

Harry could tell by Clyde's expression that he knew that much was bogus. Anybody could take one look at Stan Liddy and know there was nothing innocent behind that crooked sneer. The real innocents were the soon-to-be victims of Santos Jimenez if Harry failed to sabotage the drug-running operation in Cuba. The real innocents were Clyde's children.

Harry sighed and slowly took one more look out the window. The men around Liddy had dispersed. They were pacing the perimeter of the alcove with their weapons ready. Something had alerted them. The leader stood over Liddy, clumsily trying his hand at spinning the two revolvers, seemingly listening for something.

"That the cavalry? Everyone go check. If that is the cops, give 'em hell. We can hold 'em off until the boss gets here."

"That could be him now," said one of the lackeys.

"Well I don't want no more surprises. Go take a look-see. I'll keep an eye on our _compadre_ here."

The seven or eight other men issued out of the alcove, scurried down the dusty street, and disappeared beyond sight of the window. The leader remained. He got back to cackling, pacing around a still lifeless Liddy, reveling in quiet lust over the two guns had had taken as prizes. Clyde cursed and muttered under his breath.

"We're fucked now," he said. "They've got the only way in or out of this place blocked-off. And it sounds like we're gonna be getting' company here in a little while."

"Then I suppose there isn't much harm in having an extra head help us think of a way outta here," said Harry. He inched again up to the window. The guy still stood by Liddy, his back turned, seemingly caught up in trying to spin the revolvers, fumbling them into the sand, laughing to himself. One well-placed shot into the back of his skull with a tranquilizer dart would knock him out for hours. Harry aimed and squinted his left eye.

"Need some help with that?" said Clyde.

Harry sighed in frustration. "No. Just shut up for a sec."

"I wasn't lyin' when I said I was a good shot. Hand it over. I can pop 'im from here."

"You gotta be outta your mind if you think I'm handing this thing over to you."

Liddy started to stir. The man gave up with the revolvers and quickly jammed his boot into the detective's neck to keep him from moving.

"Maybe I should kill you now," he snickered. "Or should I use you as a human shield for when your back-up arrives? Ah, now that would be fun. Hmm. I don't know, these are powerful handguns. I think I'd have them outgunned, don't you?"

Liddy sputtered as he struggled to get free of the boot pressed on his throat.

"I'm sorry, what's that?" He mashed his boot harder. Liddy kicked his legs wildly. "You agree? Yes, these are a couple of magnificent handguns. Perfect for putting down _los certos_. One less of you's is one less of you's, no?" He clicked the hammer back and pointed a revolver at Liddy.

Clyde swiped in vain at Harry's leg as he leapt out of the window and then silently skipped across the dirt, over to the walled-in alcove. Even at this range, a perfect shot to the head with his PB pistol was hopeless. His mark, landing even slightly astray, could take up to half a minute to put his target to sleep. Before Clyde could make a noise, before the man pulled the trigger, before Harry could think, he sprung from around the corner and hurled himself at the gunman. Harry sent him flailing into the dirt and, at the same time, had him grappled around the neck. He clenched tight as he could as his muscles squeezed around the essential airways and arteries of the man's neck until he went limp. Stan Liddy rose to his feet and swiftly snatched his two revolvers off the ground.

"Harry Morgan," he said hoarsely. "I should've known."

Harry was too busy catching his breath to see the revolvers were now fixed on him.

"What the fuck?" Harry puffed, instinctively shielding his face with his arm. He didn't dare look towards Clyde. He already told him he didn't need his help.

"I'm asking myself the same damn question. You and that weasel Clyde are a little too close of friends for my liking. What was this? Some scheme you two thought up to get rid of me?"

"Listen to yourself, Liddy. You're obviously upset, but we can work this all out later. We'd better get outta here before those guys come back."

Harry stood and started out of the alcove, trying to head a different way than towards Clyde's hiding spot.

"Not so fast." Liddy clicked the hammer on his other revolver. "I could tell he was ridin' with a roughneck, but you? I suppose you two do look like quite the cute coupla' outlaws—you, lookin' a little ragged 'round the edges now, and him, the same flea-bitten varmint he's always been. I knew you were helpin' that motherfucker outrun me. That's low, Harry; tellin' him to lure me here. But I can forgive. All you gotta do is give up Clyde Robinson, and then we can all walk outta here."

"Or else what? You're gonna shoot me?"

"No but somebody else might if you don't make up your mind, and quick. And I suggest you make the right choice if you don't want Matthews hearin' about this."

Harry faltered. He had the PB tucked in his waistband, but somehow he guessed Liddy, by the way he expertly twirled his revolvers, was the quicker draw.

"If you ain't gonna arrest him, then I will. It'll solve a whole lotta bellyachin' right here and right now if you just tell me where he's hiding."

"You aren't exactly going by the book here either. What are you gonna tell Matthews? That you had been tailing a wanted suspect all alone, and for some asinine reason, neglected to call for backup when you saw the chase leading here. Here, of all places. It almost got you killed. And guess what? It's gonna cost you your career."

"No thanks to you, you son of a bitch," Liddy muttered. "Go ahead. Tell 'im how crooked of a cop I am. See where it gets ya. Harry, you forget, we other detectives ain't all the apple of Matthews' eye like you are. I don't have the same reputation to defend. I don't have a promising future. You've got nothin' but promotions lined up for you. Matthews gives you all these special assignments while the rest of us don't get jack. My life can't get any tougher. I don't got nowhere else to go but up, you see? If making this bust don't get me my gold shield, I don't know what will. So why don't you step aside; give someone else a shot for a change?"

_If only he knew_, Harry thought.

"I'm not telling you where he is. But even if you do find him, he won't go down easy. He's beyond crazy. You can't begin to understand what's gotten into him."

"I know more than you think, Morgan. And if this case is as big as I think it is, Matthews and all them other douchebags in homicide will be kissin' my ass. Now either you give 'im up or getta my way, unless you want this to get messy."

He shoved Harry hard in his lame arm as he pushed past. Harry threw a futile hand out to try and stop him. Liddy made a B-line for the building Harry had crawled out of, and where Clyde was hidden. But suddenly, to Harry's bewilderment and horror, Clyde hopped out of the window and walked in the midst of the dusty field, his arms sprawled wide at his sides.

"You want me, dickhead? Here I am."

Regardless of anything Harry did now, this would indeed get messy. He felt the cinderblock walls close a tight circle around him and grow immensely high, shutting him in. The air drew close, thick, and full of sound, amplified by the disbelief of his own sight. The ghosts danced again in the blackness of his covered eye; taunting, cackling, prodding. Everything moved in slow motion. Liddy and Clyde stood toe to toe before him. He could only believe this sight as much as he could believe in the phantoms. And like wraiths in the wind they dissolved; their contours turning to sand and whisking away. In this thronging onset of incoherent sights and sounds, a heaviness remained at his center: remorse. Remorse for having let it come to this. He had failed. His world was crumbling.

There came sudden voices that seemed to resonate as if from Harry's center; clear and yet full of dread. Like the sinking remorse, he clung to the dread for a foothold. He listened carefully.

"We checked it out. It was just some lady who drove up and did a U-turn. But we did find a couple cars parked out by the entrance. One must have been the pig's. The other one, we don't—"

Liddy and Clyde both broke their venomous stares off one another dove to the dirt. The eight men had returned and stood with bewilderment in a row for only an instant before charging in with guns drawn. Harry saw that Liddy was crouched behind a stack of sheet metal. Clyde lay flat on his stomach behind a low section of unfinished wall. There was a breath of silence before the gang of eight opened fire.

Harry couldn't tell if he had been spotted yet. He didn't really worry about it. Under fire or not, he needed to take these men out. He had caused this. This was his responsibility. He aimed the sights of his PB Makarov and squeezed the trigger for the first time in over a year. He couldn't tell if he'd hit his mark. The field was already dense with churned dust and blistering loud, ceaseless gunfire. Distinct amid the clamor, Harry heard a few rapid cracks, louder and with greater percussion than the rest of the gunfire. The air was soon dead silent after exactly eight of these shots. Harry squinted through the smoke and the dust and saw Liddy standing up straight, his revolver barrels smoldering low at his waist. Clyde lifted only his head as he lie in his prone position. He was shaken but alive. Liddy walked slowly backwards a few paces, laughing.

"This," he said, blowing the smoke from the slick, silver barrel, "is the greatest handgun ever made. The Colt Single Action Army." He emptied both chambers of their spent shells and quickly loaded in new ones. "Six bullets. Enough to kill anything that moves. Well, eight in their case."

Clyde eased to his feet silently and began to creep towards Stan Liddy while his back was turned. By some acuteness of his senses Harry hadn't known of the detective before, Liddy turned and aimed one of his revolvers at him. The other, he pointed towards Harry.

"Don't even think about it," he said to Clyde. "And you," he said to Harry, "why don't you set down that pea-shooter 'a yours? I think we know who has the upper hand in terms of firepower here. Matter of fact, both you two come sit right here so we can hash this out like grown men. And don't try nothin' stupid."

With no other choice, the two did as the detective demanded and plopped down on the dirt in front of him. Liddy leaned against the sheet metal stack, grinning, both pistols fixed on either Clyde or Harry.

"Pretty creative stunt you two tried to pull right there. Almost makes me wanna cut you loose to see what else you two bozos can come up with."

"Liddy, this isn't what it looks like," said Harry.

The gun-slinging detective reared back and connected his boot with Harry's chin.

"I oughta blow your head off right here and now," he clicked the hammer back. "One of these knuckleheads had got a hold 'a my pistols and done shot the good Detective Morgan. What a shame. Good man he was. Righteous man. Always followed and respected the law. Always did what was asked of him."

"You're sick in the head, Stan. What case could possibly be worth murdering a fellow policeman over? What good comes out of it?"

Liddy turned his sinister glare on Clyde. "You don't know the half of it. Do you, Morgan? You have no idea what kind of veil has been pulled over your eyes. You've been aiding a very dangerous criminal."

Harry glanced towards his pistol lying in the dirt. It was well out of reach, even by a good stretch of his leg. Stan Liddy was all talk. He was crazy, but not crazy enough to shoot his fellow officer. Harry made the hopeless reach and was intercepted by a boot to the nose. Clyde sputtered and fidgeted helplessly at gunpoint.

"This is only gonna go one of two ways, Harry. You can walk away from this. Leave the crime scene, and Clyde, for me to deal with. When I call this in, I tell 'em you were never here…"

Harry knew already that wouldn't work. His prints were all over the stolen Impala. One of his tranquilizer casings was in the dirt somewhere. And to put faith in a man's word who had threatened his life twice now—well, it would say a lot about his own integrity.

"Or," Liddy scowled, seeing Harry's reservation, "I waste you. That simple. Either way, Clyde ain't leavin' here a free man. Those are your options. What's it gonna be? By the sound of it, we've got more _muchachos Cubanos_ comin' our way, so you'd better think quick."

"You're wrong. You think this is some special case Matthews put me on? I've been helping this guy on my own free time. His children are in danger and he believes I can help protect them. But I don't care how cracked you are, Liddy. Your ass is done once Matthews hears about this."

Liddy kneeled down near Harry. He searched him with his heavy, piercing eyes.

"That's cute. He's got you wrapped around his finger. Some kinda sob story bullshit of his you're buyin'. I thought you were better than that." He turned to Clyde. "C'mon, soldier. Why don't you give us the gist of it?"

Clyde, like a cornered dog, as Harry had earlier felt, fraught of any true attack power, only showed his fangs. He seethed in silence.

"Oh no, that's right; they teach you not to talk. You're trained to withhold the truth under any circumstances. Black ops, right? Yeah, you ain't that big of a mystery to me. Why don't you tell Harry what really happened over in 'Nam? Might as well. This'll be the last you two ever see of each other after all."

Clyde dug his fingers into the sand, seemingly out of rage. But Harry could see that familiar mischievous twinkle return to his eye. Striking in a blink, Clyde chucked a handful of dirt at Liddy's face. But Liddy was quicker.

"You really think I'd fall for that old trick?" he said, shielding his eyes just in time. "Former Special Forces and that's the best you could come up with?"

While the detective had his eyes covered and his revolver pointed away, in just that fraction of a second, Clyde seized the opportunity to lunge at him. The two grappled with each other while Harry sprung for his tranquilizer gun. He pointed it, quivering, at the two men. Just like in the movies, he couldn't get a clear shot. He never understood why the shooter never just walked up to point blank range to make it easier on himself. So that's what he did; just instead of walking, he scuttled a little bit, before the fight swayed in one or the other's favor. He put a tranquilizer round in Liddy's head without much of a problem. Clyde's opponent rolled off him and flopped into the dirt.

Clyde didn't seem to have any word of gratitude for Harry. Instead, he bore into him with a look more ferocious than any mere dog—a dog possessed by Satan, maybe. Harry met Clyde's stare with one equally fearsome. He could throttle that freshly lumped and bruised face and feel only joy, if only for an instant. After that, Clyde would still remain embedded in his life; still latched to him like a suckling symbiont; still there to chip away at the little patience he still had for his insolence.

"You told him about my kids, you piece of shit," Clyde grumbled.

"That's about the best thing that came out of this—me telling him about your kids. Now somebody who'll actually do something about it will put those kids in a better home than with your degenerate ass. You know, Clyde, I think you really are just too dumb for your own good—beyond saving. Do you have the slightest clue what's going to happen next? My lieutenant will fire me for aiding and abetting a wanted criminal, tampering with evidence, and being a co-conspirator to whatever else you're wanted for that you haven't told me. I have car insurance, rent, medical bills—and not just my medical bills. My wife won't be able to get the medication she needs. Is this picture clear enough for you now? Or do you not understand the concept of having to care for someone other than yourself?"

"How can you even say that? I've risked everything for those kids and lost. They're all I have left."

"You're using them as leverage to get me to arrest the man who wants to kill you. Admit it. You're using them to save your own skin."

"No, Harry. You only care about _yourself._ Everything that you do is to keep the guilt away so that you can sleep at night. You're too afraid to live with the regret that the moral code you abide by is wrong. You're too afraid to find out that you've been living a lie. And you're too weak to do anything about it."

They stood square with each other in silence, save for the rumor of distant sirens. As the sirens grew louder, Clyde became antsier, until he stamped off, back towards the entrance of the construction site. The Impala's engine fired up and roared away. Its hum faded and soon all that broke the near perfect quiet was the coming sirens, faint and still far. Harry glanced back at Liddy. A small laugh escaped him. Liddy had fallen forward with his face down in the dirt and his ass up. His duster jacket was folded over, covering his head, like some weird, upside-down dress. Harry thought he'd at least make him a little more decent for when the police arrived. He propped him upright and fixed his jacket. As he folded it over, something fell out of one of the pockets and plopped into the dirt. A cassette tape. It had no markings; just a bit of sand on it now. Harry stuffed it into his own pocket, along with the tranquilizer dart that he picked out of Liddy's scalp. The spent cartridges from his two fired shots he couldn't find. What was the use? Liddy, the one who'd taken Liddy's guns, and Clyde would all place Harry at the scene anyway. His career was as good as finished. The mission in Cuba—only one week away—cancelled.

Although, he realized that if he got to Matthews before Stan Liddy, he might be able to beg to keep his job. He might be able to explain himself. It would be worth a shot if he had a car. He stood in the center of the ghostly avenue, under the long shadow of the clock tower yonder, looking once more back at the scene, at Stan Liddy propped against the metal sheeting. At this point, Harry didn't suppose he was above stealing his car to get to Matthews' place first, and at the same time, getting rid of his wheels so that he couldn't do the same. He found the Mustang and leaned in through the open driver's side window. The keys were gone. Probably among the dead. Best not bother with it then, he reckoned. Then he heard the approaching grumbling of another muscle car engine. Clyde having come back with a change of heart? No, it was no Impala. Harry cocked his gun and pressed his back to the wall. He shuffled cautiously to the corner. He could smell the exhaust of the idling car. He could hear footsteps. Ever so slightly, he peeked around the corner.

There was only one human body and that was all he needed to know. Harry slammed the person by the throat into the wall as he leapt out from around the corner. In his grasp was a woman; young, blonde, eyeballs wide, gasping for air. He quickly unhanded her.

"Eva?" Harry muttered. "What are you doing here?"

"Hello to you too, Harry," Evelyn Vogel replied with a cough. "There isn't any time to explain. We've got to get going."

She skipped over to her car—a 1965 Aston Martin. Harry stood bewildered for a moment, both enthralled by Eva's charm suddenly back in his life and by the sight of the stylish European grand tourer.

"Where did you get that thing?" he bumbled.

"There's no time, Harry. Get in!"

The sirens blared loudly now in the adjacent street. Harry scurried to the passenger side, or what he had mistaken for the passenger side. He quickly corrected himself and he and Vogel were off.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: **So we saw in the last chapter that Harry and Clyde just couldn't see eye to eye. They've now parted ways and we continue to follow Harry as he struggles with what this really means for him. Is this the relief he needed or is it the opposite?

I haven't gotten any flack for it, but you might notice I write somewhat passively. I understand, among writers and in writing, that that's frowned upon. I write like this for two reasons. One, I don't consider myself a writer. And two, I do it on purpose. I'm going for a certain feel. Everything in the story (well, for the most part) is unfolding before Harry's eyes or his perception and what you're getting is not only his concrete observations and sensory reactions, but his emotional responses, even in the narration. The narrator isn't omniscient. That's because I've blended some of Harry into the narrating. So the long-winded parts that might come off as too "telly" can't necessarily be taken for granted anyway. This might be a little unconventional, but like I said, I'm not really a writer and I wouldn't care either way. My point is: I want to leave as much to interpretation as I can.

**Chapter 7**

**A Pillar Among Us**

Eva handled the Aston Martin with the utmost precision and skill as she and Harry zipped out of the alleyway before the sirens could intercept. Harry didn't want to look in the mirror to see how many police they had averted. He couldn't bear another glimpse of that solemn place he had left behind, where he was forced to incapacitate a man who wore the same badge as him, and the place of his and Clyde's parting. Harry hoped, for the safety of that man who he could, in the remotest and strangest sense, call his friend, that he never saw him again.

Eva continued at a swift, steady pace north, towards where Harry lived. A line of police cruisers came hurtling down the road from the opposite direction. They all flew past, sirens wailing. Soon the road was quiet and empty. Harry could finally catch his breath.

"How'd you find me?" he asked, half interested. He was more intrigued by the suave look of the car's interior.

Eva gave him a brief but condescending look. "You left me with your address, didn't you?"

Harry squinted at this sudden snootiness out of the usually charming Eva. "No, I mean how did you find where I was just now? And how did you manage to get there and scoop me up just in the nick of time?"

Eva flipped a switch on the center console. A scratchy transistor chatter kicked on through a small speaker above the car radio. Harry instantly recognized the chatter as police ten-codes, mostly those that translated to "shots fired." Eva quickly switched it back off. Harry felt a bit thrown-off.

Harry stumbled over the many question that bombarded him all at once, looking in all directions as if for answers. Mostly, he realized in that moment, he was infatuated with the beauty of the fine leather interior of the Aston Martin. He let out a simple "But why?"

"Just be glad I came when I did," she snapped. Harry could see she was avoiding eye contact. She swallowed heavily.

"Hold on just a minute there, toots. You can't just pop up out of the blue and think I won't ask questions."

"Well I can't answer them. Not now. Not here." Eva clenched the steering wheel with white knuckles. She didn't take her forward stare off the road for a second.

"Why not?"

"Please, detective. I know you must have a lot of questions for me, but they'll have to wait."

Harry half expected to turn and see somebody in the backseat with a pistol to Eva's head. Cautiously, he looked. Nobody. It was only the two of them. He felt underneath the seat. Nothing out of the ordinary. A purse—most likely Eva's—and that was it. Suspiciously, he inspected the radio Eva had quickly switched on and off.

Quieter than normal, he asked: "Is the car bugged or something?"

"Good heavens, no," said Vogel, almost letting out a little laugh. Still, it was clear something deeply troubled her.

"What then?" Harry demanded, back to his regular volume. Vogel remained obstinate.

"Look, if you're in trouble, you can tell me. I'm a cop," Harry said. "That's a big part of my job—keeping people safe." As if he needed anymore shit on his plate.

"All I'll say is that it's not _me_ who's in trouble here. Right now, it will be easiest if you hold your questions. I'm taking you home, where you'll be safe. I'll arrange a meeting place for us to talk later. I promise I'll explain everything."

"Eva, is this some kinda joke, you know, like that time when you told me I had cancer? Real twisted sense of humor you've got. It wasn't funny then and it isn't now, so what gives?"

Eva pursed her lips and clenched the steering wheel even tighter. Deftly, she sped around the corner leading into Harry's neighborhood. Her command over the wheel was impressive compared to Clyde's driving, and even Harry's when he considered it.

"Well then," Harry said, his head pressing back into the headrest as Eva floored the pedal, "maybe you could at least tell me whose car this is, for starters. I've gotta ask; last guy I rode in a car with stole the damn thing."

This time she did giggle a bit. "Well, though it isn't mine, you'll be glad to know I have full permission to drive this car. It belongs to my fiancé."

Despite practically being kidnapped by her, Harry couldn't help but feel a little extinguished by the word fiancé. In the same notion, he had no intention of playing along with anybody's bullshit anymore. Stan Liddy, Clyde, and now Eva, all seemed to know something greater than what they were letting on. Even Doris was hiding something from him—he could feel it. He was getting jerked around at every turn and still he was missing something. He couldn't stand to breathe the same air as these people anymore. His wife—if she was harboring a secret, he could live with it; if it were just the two of them. And Matthews, he reckoned. But Matthews would never keep anything so huge, so profound, from him that Harry couldn't have seen from the get-go. Many a drunken conversation at the _Blue Corner_ taught him that. Tom Matthews had his own demons, as do all good men. All in all he was just that: a good man. Beyond the haughtiness, the greedy steadfastness, the questionable acts a man only so down and desperate could implore, Thomas Matthews was a man of his word.

"Drop me off here," Harry snapped, as the car paused at the intersection a block down the street from his house. "I wouldn't want the wife to see, you understand."

"Of course," Eva replied. She saw Harry's hand hesitate at the door handle.

"You know," she said, "we can talk about the car if it makes you feel better. I don't have any problem answering those kind of questions, for right now leastways."

Harry glowered at her. She returned a desperate, helpless look.

"I didn't want to do this to you, Harry. But I was faced with the lesser of two evils, as it were; which you're making it out to look like. You're acting like me coming to help you was a bad decision. I'll admit, I'm terrible at making critical decisions under pressure, but somehow, deciding to save you didn't strike me as unwise at the time."

"Whatever you say, lady." Harry exited the car and stood in the street, leaning in the open door, keeping a dangerous gaze fixed on Eva. "Don't even think about coming by my house. Don't come looking for me ever again. And no more _messages_."

"Messages?" Eva said with almost a smirk. "I haven't tried to send you any messages. Any non-verbal communication is entirely on the receiving end—your perception. I can assure I didn't mean to send any."

Harry bit down hard, repressing the urge to call her a fucking smartass. She knew exactly what he was talking about.

"The bottle. The bottle you mailed to my house. The one that was found in my car."

"Oh yes, the bottle! Harry, there's a reason for that. I thought you'd have been able to see it. But we can talk about it. We can discuss everything you have to ask, later."

Harry felt the nerves in his neck want to shake his head "no" and the muscles in his legs want to start walking away. Yet he stayed by the open door of the Aston Martin in the middle of the intersection. A car was coming up from behind. He'd need to move soon.

"2626 Northwest 135th Street," Vogel expelled. "Room four. That is where you'll find me if you want to chat. We only have tonight to do it. I do hope you'll show."

"Yeah, well, don't count on it."

Harry slammed the door and started down the street towards his house. Eva lingered for a moment and then made the turn at the intersection, riding off in that James Bond roadster of hers, or rather, her _fiancé_. Whatever the truth was about Evelyn Vogel, Harry meant never to learn.

Harry checked the time on his digital watch as he charged through the front door of his house. A quarter after five. Matthews was long at home by now. Harry hoped so. He was going to show up at his house with Clyde and his kids after all. What would he have done if he wasn't home? Anything could have been better than whatever lead Harry to shoot his fellow officer. Damn Clyde. Damn him and that convoluted mess that surrounded him wherever he went.

He bounded over the counter into the kitchen and wildly twisted the telephone rotary to call up Tom Matthews. Time stood frozen as he waited for an answer. He caught Doris staring at him from the living room. Good. She was here, safe and sound; not run-off, unable to deal with so gregarious a husband, and thankfully, not kidnapped or worse by any of the psychos that had somehow wriggled their way into Harry's life. She was beautiful, angelic, but clearly and deplorably terrified. He had no excuse for her to feel anything but comfort and safety. He promised to protect her. And yet, there she stood, trembling, cowering. Vulnerable. As much as Harry wished to throw blame on Clyde for how badly things were spinning out of control, as much as he wanted to take the soda bottle Eva had sent him and tell Clyde to shove it, Doris was his utmost responsibility. Any suffering of hers, he deferred, was one hundred percent on him.

Harry was getting no answer. He cranked out the numbers on rotary as fast as he could. He had it down to muscle memory. Seldom did he ever call anyone else. Once more, no answer. He smashed the receiver down and tried the number again. No answer. Liddy had gotten to him first. They were on the phone right now. Or Matthews was discussing with his superiors not only Harry's termination, but his punishment.

"Fuck! FUCK!" Harry thought only to say.

Doris made a weak, petrified noise. Harry wished she would find something else to do other than worry about him. This was his problem and he was going to fix it, one way or another. A cigarette would be absolutely God-sent right now. _Please, just pick up the phone, Tom._

His prayer was immediately answered.

"Who the hell is this?" That familiar dry, bitter tone was like soothing music; like cool water washing over his burning, seething limbs. "Can't you take the hint? I'm in the middle of something!"

"Tom! Thank God. It's Harry. We need to talk right now. It's uh, work-related. Can we meet up?"

There was no response for a minute. Harry thought he could hear other voices in the background. "Harry, yeah, that was my next guess as to who was calling." Harry heard the voices in the background go quiet. Tom brought his volume to a near whisper. "I heard what happened. We can talk about it but not now. Maybe not tonight at all. Don't try stopping by without me calling you first, okay? Seriously. I know how you must be feeling, but you've gotta relax. I'm having a little gathering at my place with some of the big wigs from the department. So, for the love of God, don't come here. And, I don't need to tell you this, but do not, for any reason, show your face around the station either. If you knew what was good for you, you'd lay low right now."

"Give it to me straight, Tom. Is this it for me?"

He heard Tom sigh through his nose. "We'll talk about it. Here, I've gotta go. Remember, wait for my call before you do anything. You know I don't leave messages, so that's all the more reason for you not to set one foot outside that door."

Harry slowly hung up the handset and sat on the kitchen counter. Doris came over to sit next to him on the counter and ran her fingers through his hair. Harry was too distraught to feel it. He couldn't feel anything besides woe for what he had done to Doris, to his family, or any sort of family he'd ever have.

"Is everything all right?" she asked in a soft, unsteady whimper.

Harry thought she could read him. He knew she wouldn't ask such things rhetorically. He thought she could see through him. He had always relied on her clairvoyance when he was in the fog.

"No," he said. "It isn't."

"I saw you take off with that guy Clyde earlier. But I knew you'd be okay. I knew you'd learned your lesson. All that matters now is that you're here; safe. I'm sure whatever's going on, you can get through it. You've already survived so much."

Harry let himself take a deep breath. He started to feel the fingers coursing through his hair; his wife's gentle, pacifying touch. He was lucky to have a wife like her. He hoped, after all was settled, after all this could be put behind him, that perhaps they could start a real family. Maybe, he decided, he was worthy of children. Maybe they were the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe they were what was worth looking forward to. A daughter, as Doris wanted; a son; both—two souls with two caring parents. To pass on a legacy to new blood, to give the gift of virtue and strength that makes a human being more than cell membranes bound closely to each other, more than the dust that he rose from, always seemed to Harry the next step towards becoming a man. That was the path God had set for man. Long ago had Harry strode away from that path, down a more perilous road, and insurmountable seemed the space in between. He could only hope, if it was already too late for him, that his child could one day walk in the light of the perfect and the picturesque; along a much different road than he.

"Is it about Clyde?" Doris asked, at length.

_ Is it ever not about Clyde?_ He shook his head "no." Another lie. Another drop of ink into a pitch black pool.

"It's something I need to talk to Tom about. He's got the higher-ups at his place, so he and I can't meet up." Harry rotated his afflicted shoulder, trying to find something to take his mind off the grim reality of the situation he was in. "That guy is always keeping you waiting. For someone so meticulous about privacy he sure is a poor planner."

"Is it about a couple of kids? Something about a house fire and some people you had to rescue? I forgot what the lady from the station said. Camilla, I think is her name."

"What? She called here? When?"

"Oh, I don't know. A little before you got home."

Harry said nothing more. He hopped down off the counter and frantically dialed Camilla's number. She picked up after only a few rings.

"Hello?" The voice sounded cheerful enough. Nothing horribly wrong so far.

"Camilla, it's Harry. Shit, I completely lost track of time." Lost track of his promise was more like it. Harry always had a good sense of the time of day. "I'm sure you've had your hands full."

"No, the kids aren't a problem at all. They're really quiet, well-behaved boys. Gene is a little confused but he's having a great time watching them. Right now they're all watching M*A*S*H* on TV."

Harry breathed a little laugh out of relief. "I don't know if that show's for kids, Camilla."

"They're a little too young for it to make a damn difference if you ask me," she said. "Wasn't that guy you showed up with their dad? Boy, I'm sure they've already heard their fair share of foul language hanging around that creep. Bit of a roughneck, that one."

Clyde: the last topic Harry wanted to talk about. "So you're okay with keeping them around for a little while longer? I'm expecting a call from the lieutenant here shortly."

"That's the thing. I haven't told Gene anything other than what I'd told your wife: that you rescued them from a house fire. He's off duty right now, but sooner or later he's going to try to get a hold of the station and call in on the house fire report. He's been asking a mighty lot of questions about these kids. I keep telling him that you said you'd come right back for them. It's been almost three hours."

Harry shut his eyes tight and dug his knuckles into his forehead, trying to think of another way around what it was looking like he'd have to do. No matter how he played his cards, it was always the same inevitable outcome.

"All right, I'll come get them then."

His free hand hovered over the keys to Doris' station wagon on the counter. He hadn't even asked before making this promise to Camilla. He looked to Doris for permission. She had one hand wrapped around her waist, the other pressed to her lips as she listened eagerly. She nodded. Harry ended the call by letting the phone fall and dangle by its cord as he hastily started for the door.

"I'm sorry, Doris," was all he said as he left. It wasn't enough. He hated having to do this to her.

The gloaming sun shone red in the west. Harry pulled out into rush hour traffic on the highway. He hopped a few medians, passed other drivers illegally, and still it seemed an hour had gone by before he arrived at Camilla's house. Out of habit, he checked his mirrors. No tails. No white Mustang. And no low-rider Impala waiting around the corner, not yet anyways. Maybe Clyde had already come and gone. Maybe everybody inside was already dead. "No, everything's just fine," Harry said aloud. Even Clyde was smart enough not to come here. Harry had only told him that Camilla worked at the police station and it was enough to put Clyde on his best behavior (the best he'd seen out of him) for their very brief visit. Harry hoped the house of straw would hold. Just in case, he kept his hand poised over his gun as he knocked at the door.

A square-jawed, bright-eyed man answered the door. He greeted Harry with a jolly smile. A faint, strange aroma wafted out as the door swung open that stung Harry's senses. He couldn't quite place it. It was like an animal smell. He was forced to ignore it.

"Harry, gosh, it's been a while!" said the man. "Look at all that hair! And, hey, the eye patch is a nice touch too! You've been doing undercover work, I see."

An oblivious man, Camilla's husband Gene, as Harry derived from their short bouts of small talk the two of them shared around the precinct. Harry had been growing his hair for months. The eye patch, he understood, was a spectacle though. If anything, he was glad one less person was not busy looking into him.

"Gene. A pleasure. Just here to take those two rascals off your hands."

"In a station wagon? What happened to your little Dodge Dart?"

Harry winced. "The wife's. It's a long story. I really do need to pick up those kids. I'd love to stay and chat but the lieutenant's got me on a tight schedule."

"Oh, I thought you were using up the rest of that vacation time. I know you must've accumulated a lot over the years. You just don't quit!"

Harry looked down at his feet and kicked at some sand. He needed this to be over with.

"Well, you know how this job can be. Sometimes you'll be minding your own business, you know, life as usual, and something just plops into your lap that you can't ignore."

"Man, you already work hard enough. Call it a night. I can take 'em down there. I'm heading back out soon anyway. You know me; always trying to keep busy. But vacation time is vacation time, man. Spend it on yourself. Hell, I'd go to Hawaii with all the vacation time you've racked up. Maybe if I get my ass in gear I might take a little trip myself before the end of the year. But really, you should stay in for the night. Let me take care of it."

Harry bobbed his head, acting like he was considering the offer. One thing he didn't need was Clyde rolling up right now to claim his children, if he could be so bold as to try. And then there were the men after Clyde: the Cubans. One of them could be watching this place right now and Harry wouldn't know it. They could be lying in wait, ready to take retribution on Clyde for killing three of theirs.

"That's nice of you, Gene, but it's really okay. I just wanna see to it myself that this case gets closed. I just wanna be done with it."

He wanted to bring the chapter of his life on Clyde Robinson to a close. He would probably be arrested on the spot for what happened at the abandoned construction site. If Clyde had wound up in custody already, even if he told the absolute truth about Harry, or all he knew of him, it would only dig Harry deeper into trouble. Not turning Clyde over when he should have, not speaking up about the kids, saying nothing about, and then riding shotgun in, the car Clyde had admitted stealing, and keeping quiet about the three men he admitted murdering were all traits of a co-conspirator, of a downright criminal. Harry had it coming. He could only run from it longer until the guilt began to fester and putrefy. At last, the children, whom he had risked so much for already, would be safe. They would no longer have to live in the shadow of their father, which Harry knew firsthand, was a dangerous place for any soul to live.

But whenever this thought came to mind, that he always so quickly refuted, he always reverted to the same thing: that these children were already doomed. He wasn't doing good by casting them to the wind, availing all his faith to the legal system that he had been so naïvely loyal to his whole life, by trusting that some foster program would raise these boys in a healthy environment. Only suffering was in store for these boys and Harry had seen the brunt of it. Just the small glimpse he had taken into their lives thus far was enough for him to know that it might not ever get easy for them. Like Doris, tender and fragile, he wanted nothing but comfort for these two innocent souls. Maybe, as Clyde said, Harry was the only one who could solve this.

And yet, he was torn.

He just now noticed Camilla standing in the doorway beside her husband with the two boys in her arms.

"So do you want them or not?" she said, smiling.

Harry looked in the bulbous, clueless eyes of the toddlers. So much power rested in his next move. He reckoned he had underwent the last of his most pivotal life choices with sealing his own fate by shooting Stan Liddy. Starting a family was the next arbitrary step left in changing him forever. Who knew when that might happen now, if it all, if Harry was not careful in the vital seconds to follow?

He opened his arms and accepted the boys. Already he could see the other branch of the forking trail steadily drift away as he made this choice. How far along he could walk until the next fork? How soon until a dead end?

Harry waved to Camilla and Gene as best he could as he carried the boys to the car. He strapped them tight in the backseat. The bigger of the brothers was maybe old enough to go without a car seat but the slightly younger one was substantially smaller. Harry squeezed the seatbelt extra tight on him.

"Mister! Mister!" squeaked the black-haired boy. Harry looked to the rear view mirror. "Where's our mama?"

Harry sighed. _Please don't start with this._ "I don't know where your mama is, boys." He started the car.

"We wanna tell her about all the fun we had! We got to watch the army people on TV, we got to eat ice cream, we got to play with the doggie…"

"Doggie?" Harry interrupted. He knew saying this aloud sounded silly, but he was among as non-judgmental of folk as could be. _I didn't know Camilla had a dog._

"Yeah! Big doggie!"

The other boy quivered. He dark-haired brother seemed to notice and started to pester him about it.

"Dexter's afraid of the big doggie. He's such a scaredy-cat." This he followed with barking noises. The younger one squirmed and cried, trying to get away.

"Dexter?" Harry said quietly to himself. "Not Dennis, or Derick, or whatever it was? Dexter, huh?"

"Mama calls him Dexter. Daddy calls him Dickie."

The red-haired boy's eyes lit up. "Mama," he said. He looked around, grabbing at the air, as if expecting to find arms there to pick him up. He saw there was nobody standing over him and let his chubby little arms fall to his sides. "Mama," he said in a tiny voice. He frowned.

"Can you say _my_ name, Dexter?" asked the big brother to the little brother.

"BRI-NEE," the little one answered, articulating well, but with wrong pronunciation.

The other boy shook his head with a giggle. His little brother folded his arms and huffed in quick frustration.

Harry rapped his fingers on the steering wheel, staring blankly forward. The car still hadn't moved. The boys continued to fuss between each other, but all had gotten quiet for Harry. He sucked his teeth. He tried hard to muscle down this ugly feeling in his gut. He glanced at his mirrors routinely, nervously. He looked towards Camilla and Gene's apartment. He looked all around, trying to keep up with the world spinning around his head. He wasn't sure what he was looking for; simply anything that would convince him otherwise against doing what he was about to do.

To clear the fog about him, or to add to it, Harry reached for his pack of smokes. He instantly withdrew his hand, realizing the debauchery in such a move. It made him look at himself and wonder why such a move was still instinctive; a twitch of muscles he had no control over. He tended to have better faith in his auto-pilot in times of distress. The error of his ways was unfurling on all fronts, even the subconscious, it seemed. But before he could pull the fingertips away, he remembered the square-edged shape in his pocket was no cigarette pack anyway. It was the cassette tape he had pick up off Liddy. He pulled it out and studied its plastic exterior once more, thinking this time he'd find some better clue as to what was recorded within. Was it some bullshit Clyde dreamed up to frame him? Or, in the other direction, was it a confession or some other exacting evidence? Or maybe it was a log Stan Liddy had made as he tracked Clyde's movements. In any case, it must have had something to do with Clyde if it was on Liddy's person. If that were the case, whatever was inlaid on the metallic strip within that plastic casing could only either irreparably harm him or greatly aid him in his defense. Then again, it could also be no more than a mixtape of Stan Liddy's all-time favorite country jams. One way or another he needed to find out what was on it. He patted the tape in his palm contemplatively. He knew of only one place that had a tape player. Before he could entertain that seedling of an idea, he had something to take care of first. He stuffed the cassette back in his jeans pocket and yanked the gearstick into drive.

He pulled up to what was looking to be the end of the line on the road he had so chosen; the wrong road, the dead-end road. He got out of the station wagon and took the children up in his arms. He entered the front door of his house.

No police waiting inside. No Cubans. No Stan Liddy. No Clyde. He sat the boys down on the sofa near the front door and peeked through the blinds. Thus far, he remained unfollowed. The TV was on in corner of the living room. Doris was in the kitchen, washing dishes. Everything appeared normal but felt so much the opposite. Harry skittered about to try to make the boys comfortable for the moment so he could go break the news to Doris. He searched for some sort of toy they could play with. For adults, Harry and Doris were a little messy, with stuff lying everywhere—assorted knickknacks and odds and ends—but none of it could suffice as toys. He quickly flipped the channel to cartoons and headed into the kitchen.

"Back already?" said Doris, bubbly as could be.

Harry tossed the keys onto the counter and snatched the telephone off the hook in the same motion. He deflected the question with one of his own.

"Did Matthews call?"

Suddenly Doris looked worried. Again, it was left to Harry to muddle this rare interval of contentment for her.

"D-didn't you just get off the phone with him not even a half hour ago?"

Harry exhaled sharply through his nose and spun the rotary to dial up Matthews, ignoring his wife. He didn't mean to get impatient with her, but this grim turn the road had taken beneath him, the way he had chosen, was only going to grow worse if he didn't use every second wisely.

The other end picked up fairly quick. Harry cleared his throat in surprise.

"Tom? Harry again."

"Um, no…" said a woman's voice. "This is…a friend…of his. Who's this?" The voice was slurred, incoherent. He couldn't make out whose it was. He didn't expect to. He knew right then what kind of 'gathering' was going on at the Matthews residence.

"Harry," he repeated. "Detective Harry Morgan."

"Oh, well hold on just a minute, sweetheart. I'll…_hic_…I'll go look for him."

He heard the woman's still bumbling voice recede from the phone and a sound of music and other background voices flooded the receiver. He saw Doris walk into the living room through the corner of his eye. With a gasp, she scrambled back into the kitchen and grabbed Harry by the shoulder; his good shoulder, luckily.

"Harry, what are two little boys doing sitting on our living room sofa?"

Harry clenched the fist he was using to prop himself up against the wall. He wished she would go away. He wished this wasn't happening. Doris pushed him by the shoulder to get him to face her. Her eyes quivered as they searched his, full of new and sudden terror.

"Don't tell me…" she uttered.

Harry drew up every bit of strength to hold the anger in—his anger with Clyde, with himself. One fist he had clenched in a tight ball, the other, wrung so taut around the phone that he could almost feel the plastic handset start to crack. To an onlooker without any context, nosy enough to peep through the window, it might have looked like Harry was prepping to throttle her. He reckoned that to his neighbors he looked the type that'd beat his wife. Harry had given up caring what he looked like long ago. Since his parents had left him, he had done whatever he could to lessen the sting of betrayal that lingered thereafter. He might not have been the best student throughout grade school, but the first law of thermodynamics he learned in biology somehow stuck—that energy is only transferred and never destroyed. The initial sting bore him upon bittersweet wings to a life of justice and integrity, so that in his lifetime he may do right to others in exchange for how sorely he had been wronged. That was how his adolescent mind imagined it at least. Perhaps it was an overreaction. Perhaps he had let himself get swept away too quickly, soon as his feet could ever touch true ground. That energy had transferred into something fearsome and savage. It evolved into something so dreaded and vile, like nothing of even his darkest dreams. Already, the acid was frothing at the seams.

If only Matthews would just answer the damn phone. Harry could come clean—about Clyde, about the kids. Those kids, the poor things, were ticking time bombs. Clyde, if he was free, was undoubtedly using all his strength towards retrieving them. Or Clyde's enemies were hunting them as well. At least in that way Camilla and her husband were safe. Clyde could be watching _him_ now. Someone could be watching him now. That didn't feel at all far-fetched after his earlier encounter with Eva. He could hear in his mind the seconds ticking away towards the inevitable boom over the deep, rapid pounding of his heart. How does one stop a time bomb from ever exploding at all? Dismantle it? A morbid consideration, that. Harry leaned over to check on the boys. Both were silent, fixated on the cartoons Harry had put on. Perhaps there can be no way to prevent these two particular bombs from ever exploding; only could he prolong the explosion.

The incoherent mix of music and chatter burned in his ear the longer he waited. He could hear voices taunt him, like the ghouls danced in his darkened eye, like cackling crows perched in dead trees alongside this doomed road. He shut his eyes, trying his best to ignore them. But wondering if he had made a mistake would always haunt him. He wasn't sure on the procedure, but what if he had been called on to testify against Clyde to ensure the children wouldn't ever see him again? Could he have done that? He didn't have the strength to shoot him with the tranquilizer round instead of Liddy. It did no good to dwell on it. He had turned at the fork in the road where he did and there was no turning back.

At long last, a voice cut through the chatter over the phone. It was not Tom Matthews.

"Sorry, sweetheart. Can't…_hic_…find him."

"Listen to me," Harry began. "It's very important that I talk to him, okay?"

"Who's this, again?" said the woman.

"Oh, for the love of—"

"Harry Morgan? Detective? I…_hic_…think we've met before. Why aren't _you_ here, of all people?"

Harry's gut got suddenly heavy. As if he needed anymore delay. As if he needed more to worry about right this minute. It was, in fact, one of _those_ parties. Harry could never have turned down an invitation to these shindigs in the past. Harry imagined Tom was at the moment lost in a haze of debauchery at his bachelor pad. Had it been months ago, Harry could very well have been standing beside him, doing the same.

"Yeah, uh, I don't go to those things anymore." Really, he couldn't have come if he wanted. The big-wigs did partake in these parties as well, he knew. Harry was usually too busy with the womanly company that came along with the drugs and the booze to bother meeting any of his boss's own superiors. He didn't imagine it would go well in his situation now.

"Well, you ought to. Me and you could have another go-around."

Harry shielded his eyes from his wife's fragile, frightened stare.

"Look," he growled, "just put the lieutenant on the phone."

The woman hiccupped and blabbered something a bit away from the receiver before coming back more clearly with: "Everyone's here 'cept you, Harry. Everyone 'cept you and whoever other…_hic_...workaholics are at that precinct of yours."

Suddenly, a brilliant idea came to Harry, if ever he had one. It would be dicey, but his danger receptors were thoroughly burnt out from overuse at this point. All he had to lose could be compensated for in one desperate stroke. All he had to do was be careful, crafty, quiet. When the husk was pulled away, when all emotional baggage was dropped, these were what he did best.

Without parting word, he hung up the phone. He immediately picked the handset back up and dialed another number. In a few rings the other end picked up.

"Hello?" said a deep, jolly voice.

"Gene? Harry Morgan calling."

"Hey, long time no see. And still, no see," the man chuckled. His knack for small talk and dumb mannerisms always made Harry cringe on the inside. Harry allotted a little laugh as a very minute exchange for what he was about to ask of him.

"You haven't left yet?" he said presently.

"Just headed out the door. Where're you, at home? Hey some of us cops have to keep the streets safe while the rest drink themselves into a coma, or in your case, do it privately." He huffed a lengthy laugh. "No, I'm teasing. You've got that case you're working on—on your own time; alone too. Admirable. Matthews throws his extravaganza tonight and here we are getting our hands dirty. Why? What's up?"

"Well I thought I'd swing by the house on the way to the station-and in case I need to remind you it _is_ on the way—and I come to find a strange car parked down the street, only about a couple hundred feet from my driveway. Soon as I walked up to the door, the guy took off. Same car passed by my house three more times. Could be nothing, but would you mind calling a couple uniforms over to watch my place while I head over to the station."

A complete and utter lie; a total abuse of his power, and manipulation of a good man. How brutally sick Harry felt with himself right then. But that wasn't even the worst of it.

"What's the matter? Scared of mama bear comin' after her cubs?" Gene wheezed a laugh. Harry couldn't bring himself to fake another one in response. "Anything for a fellow cop. I'll even swing by personally if it gets slow out there and check up on ya. Make sure mama bear hasn't broken in through the back window or anything."

Great. Now he was going to have to get Doris to lie for him. As far as he was concerned, his dear and perfect Doris hadn't ever told a lie. If he was quick, she wouldn't have to start.

"These cubs won't be stickin' around here much longer," he lied. "I'm out the door with them right now. Like I said, you never know what you can get yourself into doing this stuff, especially solo."

"Well, hey, that's how you get a promotion. That's called being a damn good cop. You're a pillar among us, Harry. Drive safe on your way there. With that one eye, I'd pray you don't crash your wife's car too!" His laugh drew to such a high, breathless pitch, Harry had to take the phone off his ear. "I'm kidding, Harry. Oh boy, that's good. I'll send some guys over right now."

A bit odd of an exchange, but so far it went as planned. Now for the dreaded next phase. Doris had gravitated towards the living room where the boys were, possibly either to get to know them or to keep them from getting into her stuff. Either way, he found her sitting cross-legged on the carpet between the two boys. It was kind of a cute picture. Harry, of course, was there to do his part in tarnishing it.

"Doris, I need to use the car again."

"Sure. You don't need to ask."

Harry grimaced like he had taken a blow.

"But I need you to watch the kids while I'm gone."

Doris turned to face him. Slowly, she moved to the sofa. "So you didn't save them from a burning house or whatever that lady on the phone said." Harry avoided her both threatening and balked stare, shaking his head.

She paused. Her disappointment in her husband was palpable.

"So you had some lady who works at the station lie to your wife for you? For what? I know about Clyde. It makes me wonder what else you're trying to hide. Do I need to say it again? You're awful at lying."

It was tough for Harry to press on, but he knew this was coming. He could handle it.

"You need to take them into the bedroom or something. Anywhere out of plain view."

"Why?" Her voice lowered to shuddering whisper. Her breaths, heavy and fast.

"Clyde might come looking for them. But," he said, his palms outward at Doris, trying to quiet her before she got worked up, "I doubt he has the nerve to try it. In the off-chance he does, I've sent for uniforms to come watch the house."

"Harry," she whimpered, frightened nearly to tears, "what about the people who put you two in the hospital—those drug dealers? They had assault rifles! Did you think mention that to the police? If they were after Clyde, I'm sure they'd come after his children if they couldn't find him."

"The only people who know those kids're here are me and you. Camilla, whose husband is one of the officers that'll help watch this place, thinks I'm taking them to the station. Okay? We're—_you're_ going to be fine. I wouldn't let anything happen to you."

Doris held her head between her hands as she let her stare sink down to the floor. "Where are you going? Or should I even ask?"

Harry felt his nerves settle with each passing breath now. Like a cigarette, this endeavor he had planned was a dangerous cure. He had reached a dead end, or a verge, and saw no means of stopping now. All he could do was let his body absorb the impact. But he was at ease; composed; somehow lighter than before. He hadn't thrown off the weight bearing down on him, or beaten it. It had overcome him and thus ran the entirety of its course. The worst was over now. There was only one step left of his plan.

"Somewhere I really ought not to go," he answered.

But he had to. He had to know what was on the cassette tape. He had better hope there was something salvageable towards his defense on it. No, there was no need for hope. Failure was not an option.

Harry stalked into his bedroom, moving gracefully, mechanically, feeling clear and lucid as ever. He opened his gun cabinet. He wouldn't need anything in it where he was going, save for one thing. He retrieved the leather suitcase from the bottom of the cabinet and toted it out to the station wagon. Doris tried to say something to him as he walked out. She may have known what he kept in the suitcase, but she had never brought it up. It was a conversation he hadn't the time for whatsoever.

Dusk cast its dim grey light over the earth and hung in fuchsia streaks across the sky. Harry stood in reverence of it for a moment, breathing in the twilight air before he got in the car and started off into the coming dark. He never thought he would have to do this, but tonight was the night.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** I suppose this is the best time to say that any historical accounts included in this story are completely fictional.

So Harry's got a serious problem on his hands. All I'll say is: desperate times call for desperate measures. Just watch how he handles it.

**Chapter 8**

**Slap Pack**

Harry parked inside an empty carport of a small municipal building near the police station where he worked. He had always noticed this particular place emptied out earlier than most places of business; places run by people actually trying to make a buck. County workers were happy enough with their benefits; incomparable retirement and health care packages. But not Harry, nor his kind. The good men and women of the police force, of his department, were some of the most valiant and earnest people he'd ever met. For them, the job went beyond a means of earning monetary sustenance; beyond having a place to be, or even finding their place in the universe in which they feel most comfortable. Anyone who'd ever asked a cop why he joined the force usually got some vein of the answer: "to help." It was what Harry had answered when he was asked the same—to protect the innocent; to ensure people less obstinate, less deserving of the fate they'd been given, didn't have to suffer the wrongs done to them. He would give the same answer even now, without second thought. It was the code he lived by: to protect the innocent. Then Harry wondered, as he dumped the contents of his leather suitcase onto the hood of the station wagon, if he would ever stop bullshitting himself.

He kept eyes on his target building a few hundred yards away as he stepped into his aromatic polyamide, one-piece sneaking suit. The suit was constructed of aramid compound fibers; a class of synthetic material, heat-resistant and rated for impeccable ballistic stopping power. Harry didn't care what the manual said about its ballistic rating. Getting nailed with a bullet in that thing hurt all the same as without it. Maybe Harry had gotten one from the defective batch. Maybe it was the best Tom Matthews could get. Despite the suit being the only thing that stood between his flesh and a bullet on a handful of occasions, he had no complaints about it. It was already unbelievably warm in the suit. Its designers probably didn't intend for it to be worn in the muggy Miami clime. He knew better than to question the legitimacy of the more unconventional pieces of equipment that Matthews had his ways of acquiring for him. The less he knew about that side of Tom, the better. Harry had already stooped this low; the last thing he needed was some rogue military research analyst who sold his wares on the black market to the Miami homicide lieutenant to come after him for asking too many questions.

Harry stolidly fit a pair of tight leather gloves over each hand. One of these gloves was inlaid on the seam of the wrist with a narrow metal tube that was actually a tiny set of lock picks. He replaced his grimy tennis shoes with sound-absorbing boots to complete the suit. The beads of sweat on his forehead couldn't dry in the sticky air. Mosquitos flew in and out of his ear. He didn't swat them. He coldly surveyed the streets a moment more from behind cover of the carport before making his move. The area was spotted here and there with the dusky, greasy yellow glow of the droning street lights. In between, the shadows had set thick already. The last glimpse of red withered from the sky as night finally fell. He watched for movement in the target building as if it were just another of the 'special assignments' Matthews put him on. He lowered his eyes and tapped the face of his digital watch. His watch couldn't be wrong. It never let him down. Perhaps _he_ was wrong about his strain of fellow county workers. His two story municipal building of interest appeared empty, save for a skeleton crew; the same people Harry would have been among when he worked nights. After this night, he may have to take Evelyn Vogel up on giving him a psychiatric assessment; if she really was a psychiatrist. Harry wasn't in his right mind, he realized; as if he hadn't come to that conclusion at any point before. He couldn't be. How could he let it come to this? How could this be okay?

He breathed deep. He may not be sane but he was clear. Absolutely clear. This moment was therapeutic; this moment before he stole into the shadows; this moment that he wore the skin of who he was on the inside. He could live in the magnificence of this moment, if only out of lust for what was yet to come in the next few minutes. He wondered again, _how could this be okay? _Then again, how could this be wrong? There was no weight of life's tribulations that the world loved to expose him to, that loved to grab him by the scruff of his neck and demand he open his eyes and look at what he has done. There was nothing left. Not tonight. The light of day, after a night's sleep, would spit it all back in his face. But tonight, this needed to be done. With robotic composure Harry tossed his normal attire in the backseat of the station wagon, locked the door, making sure he hadn't forgotten the cassette tape, and flitted into the darkness, towards his workplace, Miami Metro.

With one swift motion he scaled the wall of the precinct's north parking lot and landed in the shadows on the other side. The blacktop was lit up like Time Square on New Year's, but along the wall was left a contrasting, heavy shadow. He had gazed down at this same wall from the second floor, reckoning if someone had the guts to try and sneak into the station at night he wouldn't have been able to spot him. He hoped nobody looking out from the second floor now had better eyesight than him. After all, it was never exactly the old-timers who liked to work the graveyard shifts. He continued along the wall and halted when he ran out of covering shadow. There were no more than ten cars parked in the lot. Thankfully, none of them was a white Mustang. Harry didn't know if he'd have the spine to put Liddy down again. There was a wide gap between him and the east wing of the building. Above, a terrace where a man, a fellow policeman, stood smoking a cigarette. Below, a single doorway between two dumpsters and underneath the dim glow of a small utility light. There was an air duct through the roof, but he wasn't making it up there with his gimped shoulder.

He decided to go with plan A and slinked unseen across the parking lot to the side door. This, as he recalled, was an emergency exit—at one time. On the other side was all the proper signage and alarm equipment of an emergency exit, only the alarm had been dismantled after its one legitimate use many months ago and no one had bothered to fix it since. He and his counterparts—those with the decency of not smoking on the balcony so everyone in the neighborhood could see how much their local policemen could smoke in a five, maybe ten, minute window—snuck out this way for their smoke breaks. Harry noted a few scrunched and stamped out butts on the pavement by the door. Good; so it hasn't been fixed, at least not in the last hour. The current sergeant was a stickler for keeping the premises spotless. It was only a matter of picking the lock: another act scripted into his muscle memory, given all the warehouses, storage units, private residences and the like that he'd been tasked to investigate. In a matter of five or six seconds, he was through.

Usually, when he had ventured to make these sorts of surprise visits, he'd have cased the place out until he knew it better than the back of his hand. Although he was no stranger to these linoleum floors, these ugly white paint on top of black duotone plaster walls, the exact arrangement of offices and to whom they belonged, Harry still treaded as if every step was upon alien ground. No matter how uniform a system, always would variables wriggle their way in—always, he retained. These factors were more of a threat when he couldn't mark them straightaway. He'd be a fool to let his body take fully over, to let it loose like a dog salivating and gnashing at the end of its tether. He'd have to command it to stay, no matter how it craved to be let free.

He slid by each office door of this neglected hallway. Some were lit, but all were empty. He stooped low, almost flat on his stomach, as he came to the main lobby of the precinct. He was already behind the reception area and now faced the backs of three men. There was a fourth seat at the end of the desk nearest the opposite hallway. The chair was empty, as anticipated. He tiptoed behind the chairs, inches away from them, under copious tungsten lighting. Should one of these people stir enough as to even guess at a figure teasing the corner of their eye, Harry would be finished. He remained on all fours, avoiding catching unexpected eyeshot of any dwellers who may be in the lobby, as he rounded the corner and started down the next hallway.

He crept swift and nimble towards the one light left on above the elevator at the empty hallway's end. These offices were vacant, but he was crouched low enough beneath their windows to where it didn't matter if they were or not. This whole one eye thing was making it a pain in the ass to judge depth, but he wouldn't have taken this on if he thought it'd be a problem. As long as he didn't have to fire his weapon he could manage. He didn't think for a second to bring his gun along, so it was a non-issue. He couldn't begin to fathom the prison time he'd get for armed burglary of a police station, tacked onto the heap of trouble he was already in.

He approached the light hanging over the elevator, stuck his back to the wall, beside a single steel door with a thin light glowing through a narrow glass slit, and waited in the pitch darkness. And waited. And waited. He ventured to lift his wrist and check his watch. And he waited…

The elevator chimed and the walls around it reverberated a tired groan. The metal doors slid apart. Harry was no more visible in the shadows than the dark steel of the door or the black matte hue of the lower half of the wall paint. One would have to stand and stare in that particular spot for a good minute; one would have to get the strange feeling he was being watched. This person who was about to exit the elevator was not that sort of person. She was the ditsy brunette who worked the reception desk on weekends; probably had a bug up her ass about having to work nights, or about having to always work weekends, or both. Harry could never tell which, but she had a bug up her ass about something. Someone that dumb should be glad they've got a job at all. What a miserable existence, hers. When the brat had finished her stamping and half-concealed huffing to herself and turned the far corner, Harry spun around and passed through the steel door.

He bounded up the lighted stairwell to the second floor. It smelled dusty in there, and like bare concrete. His big strides echoed no matter how softly he stepped. But the reason why the stairwell smelled like dust that hadn't been kicked up in ten years is because it hadn't. Nobody used the stairs; certainly not Miss Brunette with the attitude problem. He pushed open the next steel door at the top of the stairs slowly.

He was now at the end of a glassy corridor, dark for a short way up until a propped open double door. There was some aloof chatter beyond these doors, coming from a room Harry knew as the break room: where the bovine receptionist had gone, no doubt. He inched forward, utterly silent, through the double door and past the break room, and entered the south end of the Miami Metro homicide department. All the offices were dark. Every desk was empty. Impetuously he traced a finger along his own desk as he passed; the one closest to the south hallway—the quickest route to make an escape for a smoke break. He hadn't sat down at it in over a month. This little corner of the office where he had mulled over countless case files; his own sequestered hovel from which he sat as a median between fair and righteous law and the dregs of society hadn't crossed his mind at all in the two weeks since he had visited Matthews to discuss the job in Cuba.

The buzzing of a radio transceiver resounded faintly from the other end of the main office, near the door leading out to the balcony. Clearer was a voice tiredly reciting ten-codes back to the recipient. It was drowsing work being dispatch, especially on long, busy nights. By the sound of it, he had his work cut out for him. Harry wanted to sit still and listen for a moment more. _All available units respond to a reported shooting in Northern Hialeah_—or _stabbing, breaking and entering,_ was all Harry would have to overhear to lose composure; to say fuck this whole thing and start sprinting back the way he came to save Doris. He had to keep on. He had to have faith his plan would work. The thought alone was enough for Harry to pick up the pace. He had to make it back to Doris. More rationally, he had to make it back before Tom Matthews called back and discovered he wasn't home.

Harry hustled towards the crime lab, where just beyond was a joint equipment-property room. Hastily, audibly, he fiddled with the lock, forgetting the proper technique at all too crucial a time. The lock was simple; it was supposed to merely pop and could be easily reset. So why was he jamming his picks into it like a lunatic? The damn thing was being a bitch for some reason.

_They'll be fine. Everything will be fine._

Suddenly, the elevator in the north hallway chimed. _Fuck_. Things had been going too smoothly for too long. He was bound to hit a bump somewhere. He had made the plan to infiltrate the station so quickly, but he wouldn't have attempted it if he wasn't absolutely certain he could pull it off. He had to keep cool; focus. He half listened for the lock to give and half listened for the new voice to reveal itself. Gene? Had he gone by the house and discovered the truth behind what Harry was up to? Was it Liddy? Matthews? Harry was in no rush to find out. After what seemed like five more minutes of noisy struggling with the lock, Harry got through and re-locked the door behind him.

He kept the lights off as he groped for the nearby desk where he knew the tape player to be. Some night vision could come in handy; a blink of the light switch just to find the thing; or better yet, having one of these confounded things around the house so he didn't have to break into the police station to use theirs, so he could selfishly cover up his mistakes from the privacy of his own home.

Voices congregated by the door. They weren't angry voices; they were low and furtive. And here, he had come so far. Harry inched back, feeling free to move in the darkness while he still had it. The voices outside the door seemed to hesitate. Harry bumped into something empty and hollow: a cardboard box. The whole room smelled of cardboard, and it was then that Harry realized he had drawn back into a pile of empty boxes. The door handle wiggled and then the lock clicked. Harry's first and only instinct was to pull one of the boxes over his head. He shrunk to his haunches, wrapping into something of a ball, like some strange defensive maneuver of a spineless animal who knew he was done for, his body concealed entirely in the cardboard box. The light switched on. But it was still dark inside the box, and he clung to that darkness like it was the last drop of water in a long and lonesome desert. Like a man on the edge of his wits, about to die of thirst, looking at things as the last moments of life slip away, his eyes went to a dreamlike place where garbled shapes transmogrified before him, in the seemingly endless black. The usual dancing phantoms were nothing more than floaters in his eye, but now he saw two translucent, distinct figures standing side by side before him. These two phantoms were solemn and did not laugh or dance. They were a man and a woman, he gathered; people of his past? His parents? Whoever they were, they seemed not to glower on him with some sinister pity, but with disappointment. These were the souls of two people had had ruined forever, or else they wouldn't haunt him so. That was his only conclusion. But who were they?

Finally he opened his eyes and the light in the equipment room cut out. A snooty voice mangled the silence. "There's no microwave in there! Why the hell would it be in there anyway? Just a bunch of carboard!" The brunette; there was no mistaking.

Harry re-locked the door for a second time. He leaned against the wall for a second, breathless. His body seemed to float. These situations didn't come with surprises—they weren't supposed to. He couldn't be caught off guard; not while he wore this suit, not while he was in control. And yet, besides getting shot, that was his closest call he'd ever had. He needed to hurry before things went anymore awry. His eye had adjusted by now and he shortly located the tape player, set on the desk in the corner. He sat on a metal fold-out chair at the desk and clicked in the tape.

There was an interim of static in the headphones, and yet it was a clearer sound than the film reels Harry was used to. He heard footsteps echoing, as if within a small empty room. A woman cleared her throat. Then, the sound of metal chairs screeching forward on a hard floor.

"Tell us your name," said the woman. Her tone was stern, eloquent, and was flavored with an English accent. Eva.

"Coyote," another voice replied. The sound of footsteps could still be heard in the background.

"No," said the woman, "your real name. Not your codename."

"Coyote. It's the name _he_ gave me. _He_ would understand why I can't tell you my real name."

The background footsteps stopped. "He's right, Evelyn. Just go on with the interview." This one had an accent too, but not like Vogel's. It was a Russian. Harry had listened to enough confiscated Cold War spy logs to tell.

"Okay then, Coyote. Tell us how you ended up in that God-awful place: the place that Richard and I freed you from."

The first voice crumbled into a slobbering weep. The Russian chimed in clearer now, closer to the recording device.

"Listen, we're going to get Laura back for you. The police won't be able to help you, but we know somebody who can."

"We're, like, two thousand miles from Florida! How can you get to her in time before _they_ do?" There was silence, then the flick of a lighter. "You don't know these guys. You don't know what they're capable of."

"Please try to relax." Eva's voice was eerily calm. "Tell us how you got to this point. We want to hear it from you. Don't worry, Richard is right here."

There was some sniffling and a long pause. "Start from the beginning?"

"Yes, Coyote," said the Russian. "Remember, I lived it with you. I share your pain. You're among friends here. But if you don't tell us what happened, we won't be able to help you save Laura."

There was the crackling sound of someone taking a long drag of a cigarette, or it was the sound of the slight static on the tape; Harry couldn't tell.

"I was stationed in Inchcape, Thailand. I was only a little airman at the time; just made buck sergeant at twenty years old. Our good_ colonel_," that word he drew out, as if mockingly, "had asked to see me personally. I rarely had contact with a colonel unless it was to get reamed for something. He asked—well, _volunteered_—me to join a classified mission, about twenty kilometers north of Inchcape. I was to replace someone on the team who'd broken his leg on a jump. I was jump qualified, had about a year of Special Forces training; sea survival, jungle survival, so I replaced him. But I felt so unqualified even then, before I understood the nature of the mission, and now, after the fact, I know I was right to think that."

"You were," said the Russian. "We all were. But we got through it."

"Go on to the point where you had met Richard, at the camp," said Evelyn.

"I didn't realize it at the time, but yeah, I met Rich at the training camp twenty kilometers away, near the border of Laos. We hadn't said much to each other for the few weeks we were there; none of the team had. In Special Forces, you learn that friendships are dangerous because you never know who your teammate really is. He could be a spy, and you might have to kill him. Doc was Rich's codename. Doc because of his educational background up to that point." He chuckled. "Freakin' nerd."

"It was how I ever got to be a para-medic," the Russian added, apathetically; almost sounding affronted.

"What about your codename? Why Coyote?" Eva asked.

"I was never a team player but I wanted to be. It was part of why I joined the Forces: for companionship, comradery. I wanted to be part of a team and I got what I wanted: I came to be among a pack of wolves, only I was different. The other guys always ragged on me about wearing this bandanna. They said I just always seemed to find some way to be different. They told me I was wild, rambunctious, more scraggly; more of a coyote than a wolf."

There was some mumbling between Eva and the Russian. The faint crackling sound of the burning cigarette took over for a bit before Eva chimed back in.

"So, the mission?"

"Well, I can't tell you a whole lot about it. It's all still classified."

"It's okay. This conversation stays here. Physician-patient privilege, you understand. I can't do anything with this information if I wanted to."

"So there's no recording device set up in here somewhere?"

"I know you're taught to mistrust, but I am your psychiatrist; not some spy. I've been jotting down notes, as you've seen, but they're for my evaluation of you. So, no, there's no recording device."

"Clyde," said the background voice at last, "after what our government did to us, my loyalty to them has been called off. Keeping quiet about it doesn't make you brave; it doesn't make you more of a hero. It would be wicked of you to keep the atrocities that we suffered a secret. The least you could do is tell Evelyn so that she and I can help you. But she needs to know _everything_, and she needs to hear it from _you_."

"Rich, you know as well as I that if any of this ever got out, worse people would come after me than the Cubans who took Laura."

"You're probably right," said the Russian. "But this is only between the people in this very room right now. So please, continue."

"Fine," Clyde went on admissively. "Before our briefing, we trained in tandem jumping, which is where you jump with a partner. We didn't understand why at the time. There were only ten of us on this task force, and that's something you do if you're dropping into some place as a huge platoon. Then they brought in a group of _sappers_, who were Vietnamese soldiers, guerillas, the U.S. had taken as prisoners of war, and we soon began to guess what this mission was all about. We were briefed that we'd go in with these sappers, dressed like them, into our ally country of Cambodia and destroy our own aircraft on an airbase in the city of Phnom Pehn."

"The idea was," the Russian interjected, "to get U.S. allies to take an offensive posture rather than defensive. Nothing was happening to end the war, and what the U.S. general had devised was to kick start offensive action in Cambodia against the Chinese-led armies of Vietnam."

"By sabotaging your own country's aircraft?" Eva said, sounding astonished but understanding.

"It would make the Cambodians realize that Vietnamese had entered the country and were destroying their assets, which would hopefully cause them to take offensive action against Vietnam," the Russian explained. "And it certainly worked."

There was the quiet sound of pen scribbling on paper. Clyde resumed.

"We made the drop with the sappers at night and made our way into Phnom Pen. We rendezvoused with a different group—a crew of Montagnards: the indigenous mountain men of north Vietnam. They knew the jungles like they were nothin' and we got to the airbase with no problem, except for the sappers. We were briefed to tell the sappers that we were going to trade them for American P.O.W.s when we arrived at the base. I don't care what you say about a language barrier, but you could tell by the looks on their faces that they knew that was bullshit. Shortly before arriving at the base, the sappers tried to overtake us. There was one sapper for each American, so twenty of us in total, excluding our guides. Our true orders were to kill them once we touched down at the airbase; leave their bodies as evidence. Some we killed in that struggled. The rest we released on the tarmac, let them run for their lives, and then shot them anyway."

"Poor bastards," the Russian muttered.

"The Montagnards scattered at that point, fearing for their own lives. So just the original ten of us then infiltrated the main premises of the base, entering through the munitions facility on the north side."

"And why did we enter through the north side and not the clearer entrance to the east or west?" the Russian asked leadingly.

"There were mine fields on all perimeters of the facility except the north gate. We only found out from the sappers clearing them when we let them flee. Nobody briefed us on any fuckin' mine fields. That's when we started to suspect somethin' was up."

"What were you thinking at that point?" Vogel asked.

"That it was too easy to get into that airbase, and that it was lookin' disproportionally hard to enter the munitions facility where the aircraft were housed that we were instructed to sabotage. That someone didn't want us to enter, or to exit."

"We would have been warned to beware of them if our _colonel_ wanted us to," said Richard.

"I see," Vogel said darkly.

"The facility was lightly staffed; only a skeleton crew of palace guards. We confronted them and had to take them out."

Vogel gasped. "Your own allies…" There was scribbling again. "Were any of your team killed in that scuffle? And if they were, wouldn't they have identified the bodies as American and not a Vietnamese?"

"All ten of us made it out alive," said Clyde. "More or less."

"And to prevent getting identified," Richard added, "we were each given what's called a _slap pack_, which is a package full of napalm that would be poured on the body and then ignited with a white phosphorus grenade, rendering the body unidentifiable."

"So you succeeded in dismantling the aircraft? How did you make it out?"

"By the skin of our teeth, with the turn things soon took," Clyde said. "We all left the airbase to meet with another team of Montagnards; only a pair who would drive us to a pick-up point by truck through the jungle. We knew where the supposed pick-up point would be: fifteen kilometers to the northeast, outside of town. But the truck wasn't going northeast. And it stopped too early; maybe we went ten kilometers at most. Then we heard the two Montagnards get out of the truck and load their weapons. That's when we lost all doubt that we'd been set up. We were all ambushed and then taken prisoner." A chair scooted over a slick floor. "Long story short after that…well, I'm still standing here, aren't I? We were fucking set up. That's all you need to know. Now can I go? My flight's gonna be leavin' soon."

"No, you have to tell her. Tell her what they did to us."

"Richard?" Eva muttered. "Are you sure about this?" There was fear in her voice; not for prodding a wound Clyde may have still carried, but for treading into something she'd never heard from her own fiancé, Harry figured. There was some deep-seeded pain that Clyde and this Richard person shared, and Vogel, a psychiatrist who must have heard horror stories from a soldier at least once in her career, was fearful. There was no answer, or any sound for a moment; not even the crackling.

"We were taken to a small camp in the middle of the jungle two, maybe three hundred kilometers away. I'd been knocked unconscious, so I couldn't tell. None of us had any clear idea of where we were; only that we were nowhere near our pick-up point. Eight of us were put in a circle of cages, and two were tied to posts in the middle of the circle. The two were let to starve while us eight in the cages were fed but forced to watch. All of our ankles were broken so that we couldn't escape. One of my feet I could still stand on, but the other they'd fucked up real good, so I used my bandanna as a compression bandage, just to alleviate the pain. Escaping; making it out alive at all didn't even cross my mind. Fuck, I can't do this."

"Be brave, Clyde," said Eva. "You made it out of there and you're a better man for it, no matter what your country forced you to do." Richard was gravely silent.

Clyde took a deep breath went on dismally. "One of ours was skinned alive, and they forced us to watch by putting bayonets to our temples so that if we tried to turn away we'd get stuck. I watched the two men tied to the posts die of starvation. Two more died from torture. They were stabbed to death. One…" he choked. "One I had to kill because he told me he was going to squeal to our captors. If he had, I would've prayed to never make it out of there. If I ever did I wouldn't be sitting here right now, that's for damn sure. If our colonel was named responsible for this operation while we were still in the middle of it, he'd probably have called an airstrike on that P.O.W. camp right then and there, and done us in for good. He was a good kid too, the soldier I killed. Good ol' boy from Kansas. What a God damn shame."

Eva spoke again, slowly, careful not to rattle him any further. Richard remained quiet.

"So only four of you survived?"

"When we were eventually rescued by a Marine recon patrol, another was killed in a barrage of friendly fire. Remember, we were still dressed as the enemy. Us other three; well, we probably already looked dead enough when they got there. But those Marine recon are the only reason Rich and I are alive today; Or Rich calling out to them in English so they knew we were American; well, best he could with that broken-ass accent of his."

"And the third? Do you know what became of him?"

"If I did," Clyde began brokenly, sounding exhausted or like he was recuperating, "I wouldn't tell you. I hope Rich would do the same. I wouldn't do anything to endanger a man who'd been through any of the shit I've seen, that I've lived through. All I'll say is they threw me and him in the same prison when we made it back home. There, we uh…went our separate ways. It was pretty rough in there; full of conspirators, terrorists. I came out of it with this heinous tattoo. It was all the best I could come up with as far as fitting in so I wasn't singled out in that hell hole. Our colonel made sure we weren't given a warm welcome."

"He was guaranteed a star if we didn't come back," Richard said. "The bastard did everything in his power to put us all away for espionage, but I was granted immunity after shedding light on the colonel's treason. He went into hiding after that, so he couldn't be tried any further to let Clyde and our other man off on their charges. I devoted the next two years towards devising a way to break you out, Clyde. When I eventually got my mole in there, you know what I told him? Look for the guy with the wild eyes and the bandanna. He'll answer to the name Coyote, and you will know why just by looking at him."

"Lo and behold, he found the right guy," said Eva. "But the other man; is he still incarcerated?"

"I don't remember well what he looked like, so I couldn't send someone for him. Kind of darker skin, maybe Hispanic. But in those places, you know…"

"Well, I remember what he looked like," Clyde promised. There was a drive in his voice that Harry had heard before; an inkling of an ember, maybe rage or revenge, that still burned in that broken and hollow place that was Clyde. "I hope to find him one day and…_reconcile_."

"You have to realize, Clyde, that just because we're free, that doesn't mean we're safe," said Richard. "Our old colonel could still be plotting a way to get rid of us as we speak. And you seem to have gotten yourself in even deeper trouble than that, with Laura's kidnapping. That's why we're sending you to Florida, where, if all goes to plan, you should meet with our man who will help you find Laura. We'll fill you in with further details once you touch down."

"Great," Clyde snorted. "Can't wait to meet 'im. Now can I please go catch my fuckin' plane?"

"Clyde, can I ask you one more thing?" said Eva. There was no audible response. "What will happen once you find Laura? What will you do about the people who took her? What about the government officials who are probably searching for you right now?"

Harry imagined his toothy, unsettlingly overconfident smile. "I guess we'll find out, won't we?"

The tape cut out. Harry slowly took off the headphones and sat with his arms folded at the desk for a minute. He realized he wasn't thinking of how good or bad this tape would make things for him, but how Clyde would fare, how he_ was_ faring, and how he'd come this far at all. Things were coming into perspective now. He remembered how strange Eva was acting, and now he began to understand why. _How the hell did Liddy get his hands on this tape?_ Just thinking of the name left a rotten taste in his mouth. _Liddy._ In the slight chance he hadn't spilled the beans to Matthews already, Harry could still get to the lieutenant first. And then do what? Tell him Clyde is a hazard to him and everyone around him, or something he didn't already know? Clyde; poor wayward Clyde. He saw there was indeed more to him than Harry could have imagined from the moment he had broken the window of his Dodge Dart, right up until he watched him walk away as the sirens closed in around the dusty abandoned lot. He confirmed from his watch that he had only been here about fifteen minutes. Matthews' party couldn't have wound down so soon. There was still Eva. _What was that address she left me? 2626 135__th__ something or other. _Now if that didn't smell like a trap from a mile away, Harry didn't know what did. Priorities, priorities, and no time to spare. Harry slipped the cassette back into a pocket of his suit and exited the police station like a passing shade, like a ghost that was never there.


End file.
